Library of The Theological Seminary 


PRINCETON + NEW JERSEY 
C=) 


PRESENTED BY 


John Stuart Conning, D.D. 


DS) 118° ° B88 1925 
Browne, Lewis, 1897-1949. 
Stranger than fiction 


STRANGER THAN FICTION 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


NEW YORK * BOSTON + CHICAGO + DALLAS 
ATLANTA + SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN & CO., Limirep 


LONDON * BOMBAY * CALCUTTA 
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THE MACMILLAN CoO. OF CANADA, Lp. 
TORONTO 


STRANGER THAN FICTION 


A SHORT HISTORY OF THE JEWS 
FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO 
THE PRESENT DAY 


BY 
LEWIS BROWNE 


WITH FIFTY ANIMATED MAPS BY THE AUTHOR, 
GIVING A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF 
CENTURIES OF WANDERING 


flew Bork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1925 


All rights reserved 


CopyricHtT, 1925, 
By LEWIS BROWNE 


Set up and electrotyped. 
Published March, 1925. 


Printed in the United States of America 


TO THE MEMORY 
OF 
A GREAT HISTORIAN 
MY MASTER 


GOTTHARD DEUTSCH 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/strangerthanfictOObrow 


THIS IS THE STORY OF THE JEW, THAT STRANGE 
MAN WHO WILL NOT DIE 


Through thirty and more centuries he has wandered about on 
earth, despised and rejected, bruised and beaten, yet all the time 
wandering on. 


He has seen far-flung empires crack and crumble, and mighty 
peoples dwindle to naught. Egyptian, Canaanite, and Philistine; 
Assyrian, Chaldean, and Persian; Greek, Roman, and Saracen: 
all these and more have marched over him in pride. With their 
kings and priests, their tyrants and princelings, they have marched 
over him in vainglorious pride—only to fall and die by the roadside. 


But he, the Jew, still lives on. Obstinately he fights off Time and 
Man, pressing along on: his own path, keeping his own counsel, 
cherishing his own dreams, living his own life in his own way. 


A strange man he has been, and a strange man he remains—and a 
stranger story than that of his life no tongue has ever recounted. . . . 


CHAP. 


i: 


VIII. 


XI. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PROLOG UE Mere tet ees sleiten fet se shieln) stelle coke) eittteraeat el oions a iisiier ere 


. The Story of Certain Half-Savage Shepherd Tribes 


who Struggled out of the Arabian Desert into the 
Fertile Crescent en vies otek ah oe ee kes 


How the Hebrews Lost and Regained their Freedom, 
Took unto Themselves a God, and Tried again to 
Settle in the Fertile Crescent.................. 


. The Brawling, Ill-Organized Struggle of the Hebrews 


to Make Canaan Completely their Own......... 


. Continued Opposition Forces the Hebrew Tribes to 


Unite at last under a Single King.............. 


. The Second King, David, Leads the Tribes to Vic- 


tory, and Wins for them an Empire............ 


. The Third King, Solomon, Loses the Empire through 


his Extravagance, and Brings Ruin to his People. 


. Civil War Rends the Nation into Two Kingdoms, 


Both of which are Swallowed up by the Neighbor- 
ALO MET PICS Satie eee woe ie rae cay et hha s 


The Hebrews Continue to Live because of the Spirit 
the Prophets had Breathed into them........... 


lhe Adeals, of the: Prophets, - v.40 hi. 1s Mayes con 
. More about the Ideals of the Prophets, and the 


Story of how the Priests tried to Make them Prac- 
LICR OIG eee e el Rate Ea or Gr RP BR, aca 


How Yahvism Died and Judaism was Born in the 
Babylonians Exile sec. ae ee wee ee) eos 


22 


28 


35 


43 


48 


56 


63 


10 


CHAP. 


XII. 


XIIl. 
XIV. 


XV. 


XVI. 


XV 


XVIII. 


XIX. 


9.8) 


XXI. 


XXII. 
XXIII. 


XXIV. 
XXV. 
XXVI. 
XXVIII. 
XXVIII. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Trials and Disappointments after the Re- 
turn from) Babylonis.?.3-4- 7 1e- ere . 104 
The Priests Come into Power................ 111 


The Greek Invasion Brings on the First War for 
Freedom: of “Thought.) vse ae eee 119 


The Roman Conquest sets the Helpless Little 
Nation Yearning for a Messiah to Deliver it. 128 


Joshua of Nazareth, a Young Prophet, is Hailed 
as the Messiah by the Jews, and is Crucified 
by the Romans.) ; acetic eee 136 


How a New Religion was Created around the 
Story of the Crucified Prophet............. 145 


The Destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Le- 
gions and the “End” it Brought to the Jewish 
Nation. 33535). Wises ooo ee eee 151 

The Terrible Dispersion, and how the Rabbis 
Saved the Jewish Faith. ..4 2... .222,..05.5 158 

How the Rabbis Built a Wall of Law around the 
JEWS S25 ole ON a ite oar Ee rae 165 

The Making of the Talmud <.o250) see 173 

The Contents of the Talmud..-............... 181 

How Mohammed Built a New Religion around 
the Jewish Idea. of:God.yc.543 shea eee eee 188 

The Revolt against the Talmud............... 195 


The Dawn of Intelligence in Babylonia and Spain 203 
The “Golden Age” of Jewish Learning in Spain. 210 
Twilight in the Christian Lands in Europe..... 217 
The Terrible Night of Persecution............ 226 


CHAP. 


CONTENTS 


XXIX. How the Jews Fled from Western Europe to Po- 


Jand and ME Urkey scones sunaaeait sae ears aan 


XXX. How the Jews Helped to Bring about the Protes- 


XXXI 


XXXIT. 


XXXII. 


XXXIV. 
XXXYV. 


XXXVI. 


XXXVIT. 


XXXVIII. 


XXXIX. 


XL. 


XLI. 
XLII. 


RANG CLOLUIATIONL ee a eee ne eae i 


Persecution Compels the Jews to Re-inforce 
the Wall of Law around Themselves...... 


The Gloom behind the Wall of Law Gives Rise 
to the Cabala and the False Messiahs..... 


How the Secret Jews of Spain Fled to Holland 
and the New World 


The Darkness in Eastern Europe............ 


The Story of the Good Shepherd of Poland 
who was called Baal Shem Tov........... 


The Dawn of Tolerance in Europe, and what it 
Won for the Jews 


The Struggle for Freedom in all the Nations, 
and how it Destroyed the Wall of the Ghetto 


The Struggle for Reform in Judaism, and how 
it Began the Destruction of the Wall of Law 


The Mission of Reform Judaism—and the 
Story of those who Practiced it 


The Anti-Semitic Reaction in Europe, and how 
it Helped give Rise to Zionism............ 


The Great Exodus from Eastern Europe... . 
The Night of War, and the New Dawn...... 
GIORGEA IV aciene Gack on tae beh a (ureietl ws ten ac Wei Neha a ecg 
Six Charts Telling the Adventures of the Jews 


11 


PAGE 


237 


245 


252 


258 


268 
280 


288 


295 


302 


323 


ILLUSTRATIONS AND CHARTS 


PAGE 

1On to the Fertale:Crescenty. 2.42.0 2 ues sic oe pay 

ZmLne PXOGUSarOUr loo y Donanm erring se ae a 33 

3. LOS OUUg Ie TOP a LLOMGe: su hema weve s 41 

4, The Empire of the Robber Chieftain.......... 51 

Cuart A. The Adventures of the Jews, Part I.......... 61 
5. The Bridge Between the Empires............. 65 

6. The End of the Divided Kingdom............ 70 

7. Israel and Judah are Deported............... 93 

3.) Wien ney Game, HOMO tt eee oe tae 105 

9. The Meaning of the Book of Jonah........... 117 

JO Alexanders Rinipite ssaeneeiet ernest, 122 

Tie After Alexanders sa, se ne incre ha oe anaes 123 
Cuart B. The Adventures of the Jews, Part II.......... 127 
12. The Realm of the Maccabees................ 129 

13. The Story of Joshua of Nazareth.... ........ 143 

14. Paul Spreads the Religion of the Christ........ 149 

15. The Terrible Dispersion of 70 A. D........... 157 

16.0 nere the Rabbis: Plédesmas seo tes icy ces 6 169 
onloaOnurch Attersc aul Dieta. eee 173 

18. The Church Under Constantine.............. 174 

RO SOMO GOV ON erste eu atirs enn sarenisire aoe + 175 
Cuart C. The Adventures of the Jews, Part III......... 180 
20. Where Mohammedism Was Born............. 191 

21. Mohammedanism Triumphs—750 A. D........ 193 


14 ILLUSTRATIONS AND CHARTS 


Cuart D. 


22. 
23. 
24. 
25. 
26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 


CuHart E. 


30. 
31. 
32. 
33. 
34. 
30. 
36. 


CuartT F. 


PAGE 
The Adventures of the Jews, Part IV......... 203 
From Babylon to: Spait ages. acts ee 207 
The Wanderings of Ibn Ezra................ 211 
Here Go the Crusaders!....,.054 2. fcs on eas oro 219 
Death:to. the: Herétical a. 3.3. oa eee 223 
The Terrible Night in Germany.............. 231 
The Expulsion from England—1290 A. D...... 233 
The‘ Home of the Khazars. .s..-2.10 0 see 238 
The Flight: Hastward. cud. 4o4 ls eee 239 
The Adventures of the Jews, Part V.......... 251 
The Wandering of Sabbatai Zevi............. 265 
The Flight of the Maranos................... 271 
How the Jews Came to America.............. 273 
The. Cossack Breaka: Loosetears = ctcn-e care ae 280 
Eastern Huropé 3 ci). ake ee ee ee 284 
Ther Partition offPoland vias: Gat vale ee eee 332 
What Happened in the Pale of Settlement..... 334 


STRANGER THAN FICTION 


PROLOGUE 


42 Washington §q., 
New York City, Nov. 1, xxiii. 

The proper way to write a book—at least, so I’ve 
been told—is to buy a ream of clean white paper, 
a stock of pens, a large bottle of ink—and begin. 

And I did all that to-day. I bought the paper, 
the pens, the ink; I even bought the wire clips with 
which to fasten the loose pages, and the pressboard 
folder in which to bind the whole manuscript. And 
seven hours ago I came up to my workroom, ar- 
ranged the materials on the table, took the best 
pen in hand, and made ready to write. 

I am still making ready to write. It is already 
long after midnight, and the noises of the street have 
died down to a creepy silence. Even whirling, fren- 
zied, fevered New York has tired at last, and fallen 
asleep. But still in vain do I make ready to write. 

By this time I should have been nearing at least 
the end of the first chapter—and I have not so much 
as begun! In a brave flourishing hand I have written 
across the top of a blank sheet: 


—and no more. 


18 PROLOGUE 


For now that I am ready to begin, my mind is 
overawed. Hundreds of volumes crowd the sagging 
shelves that range the walls. Scores of other volumes 
litter the tables, the chairs, the floor. Encyclopedias 
and text-books and learned monographs are scattered 
around, and among them all sorts of pamphlets and 
clippings. They are in many languages, and they 
are cluttered with references to other writings in 
still other languages. And most of them tell at 
endless, at exhausting length, only a paragraph, 
perhaps even but a sentence, of the long story I 
would recount. 

And the sight of all those enormous volumes is 
appalling. Their story is so long! ... So be- 
wilderingly involved! ... And already it has so 
often been told. 

Yet it cries out to be told still again. From be- 
ginning to end it pleads to be retold, and not as a 
list of names and dates, but as a wild adventure, 
as a romance. For the whole history of the Jewish 
people 7s a romance; the strangest, the most color- 
ful in the saga of all mankind. 

And it deserves to be retold because so few in the 
land have ever heard it. Both Jews and Gentiles— 
save they be historians—know exceedingly little 
of that romance. Perhaps the first chapters of it, 
those contained in the Bible, are familiar to most 
people—but even they are far from rightly known. 

The Bible is a whole vast world of wisdom, beauty, 
and moral truth—but it is not a literal history. 
Its episodes and chronicles were in the mouths of 
desert tribesmen for long centuries before ever they 
were written down. For long centuries they were 


PROLOGUE 19 


passed on from father to son, growing grander and 
more wonderful with each generation. So that by 
the time they were set down in writing, the literal 
truth in them, like the vein of gold in a mountain, 
was crushed and tortured and broken in a thousand 
places. 

We know all that because for over a hundred and 
fifty years great Bible scholars have been exploring 
for that truth. They have toiled endlessly, examin- 
ing manuscripts, comparing texts, digging around 
for buried clews, spinning out theories and then 
destroying them again—all to discover just where in 
the Bible the literal truth breaks off, and where legend 
begins. 

Five generations of scholars have been toiling 
at this ‘‘Biblical Criticism,” and through their 
labor we have come to a new and nobler under- 
standing of all the early history of the Hebrew 
people. 

But too few among us are possessed of that new 
understanding. To most of us the Bible is still a 
book every word of which is literal fact. We try 
to swallow it whole, to believe it without understand- 
ing it. As a result, its history often seems but a 
monotonous and meaningless round of unbelievable 
miracles and incredible facts: a long, rambling 
chronicle of imaginative but suspicious wonders. 
There is no grand swing in it, no dramatic surge up, 
up, up toward the heights. 

So the first chapters of the story of the Jews 
must be retold in the light of the new understanding. 
They must be shown to be what they truly are: 
the immortal epic of a people’s confused, faltering, 


20 PROLOGUE 


insatiable hunger for a nobler life in a happier world. 

And the rest of the chapters must naturally be 
retold as a continuation of that epic. For the Jews 
did not cease hungering for the Kingdom of God 
on Earth when they closed the Bible era. They went 
on and on—as perhaps they still go on to-day. 

That is the true wonder of their story. There has 
been no end to the march of the Jews. They have 
gone on and on, ever refusing to halt where the 
world halted, ever pressing on in their own stubborn, 
headstrong, singular way. Of course, they have 
faltered at times; for decades, for generations, they 
have stood still. At times they have even retreated. 
But never for long. The slightest lifting of the 
yoke laid on them by a slow-moving world and on 
they have plunged—on, on, in the strangest, the 
wildest, the most fantastic career ever essayed by 
a people. 

It is the story of that career that I want to tell— 
that I have been trying to begin to tell all this night. 

Perhaps I’m too tired now to begin, too worn 
out from long wondering how. . . . Dawn is steal- 
ing up behind the blackened chimneys in the east. 
The city is awaking. There is a feeble stir in the 
streets, a rattling of milk wagons and a rumbling 
of trucks. Workmen with lunch boxes under their 
arms, their hair frowsy, their faces still swollen with 
sleep, clump along over echoing pavements. 

But in the east, over where the roof tops dully 
gleam in the morning light, there is: a greater stir, 
I know. Old men with matted beards, and young 
men and boys, crawl out from under feather beds and 
shiveringly don their clothes. They touch their 


PROLOGUE 21 


hands and faces with water from kitchen faucets, 
whisper a prayer, and then hurry out into the streets. 

Where are they going? ... But where should 
pious Jews go so early in the morning? . . . To the 
synagogues, of course! 

So they go, hundreds of them, old and middle- 
aged and young. They go to their little synagogues 
hidden away in basements, there to pray as their 
fathers have prayed these two thousand years or 
more. 

For there in the east, where now the roof tops 
are turning from black to pearl in the growing light 
of the dawn, lies the great ghetto of New York. 
More Jews are huddled there than ever were seen 
in old Jerusalem—more probably than were known 
in all the world when Solomon was King in Zion. 

What are they doing there? How did they come? 
And why?... 

It is almost four thousand years since they were 
born, and fully five thousand miles from their birth- 
place. What have they seen and thought, what have 
they lived through and learnt, in all that long trek 
through time and space? 

But that is just the story I have been wanting to 
tell all along, the story I will tell—so soon as I can 
begin. 

Only I am too tired now. 

Perhaps a little later, after I have slept, I shall 
be able to begin... . 


CHAPTER I 


THE STORY OF CERTAIN HALF-SAVAGE SHEPHERD 
TRIBES WHO STRUGGLED OUT OF THE ARABIAN 
DESERT INTO THE FERTILE CRESCENT 


Far to the east of us, pinched between Africa and 
Asia, lies a vast and barren region called the Arabian 
Desert. It is a cruel, forbidding place: an endless 
sheet of dry rock that by day is scorchingly hot, 
like a lead roof under the rays of the sun, and by night 
is piercingly cold. Here and there across the plain 
are reaches of hard-packed gravel, or of drifting 
sand that can be swept up blindingly by the winds. 
And only at long intervals are hidden thin springs 
of water that soak the soil and relieve the grayness 
with a touch of green. 

Four thousand years ago—even as in our day— 
countless tribes of wild shepherds roved hungrily 
across that dry waste. They were constantly moving 
about, swarming with their bedraggled flocks of 
sheep and goats from one oasis to another as the 
springs dried up or the grass was nibbled away. 
They had no homes save their goatskin tents; 
they had no possessions save the stone weapons in 
their hands, the rags on their backs, and the tribal 
flocks and herds. The only law they knew was 
the word of the Patriarch, the Old Man of the Tribe. 
They had no knowledge of reading or writing, and 
probably they could not* count above ten. 


THE STORY OPENS 23 


Such were the early Semites, from whose loins 
sprang the Jews. 

Because they did not yet know the use of metals, 
but made their tools and weapons of stone, we speak 
of them as living in the Stone Age. 

They were probably far unhappier than we are 
to-day, for their life was crowded with all sorts of 
fears. The whole world seemed to them to be peopled 
with terrible demons and spirits. In every tree and 
stone and tiny spring, in the thunder and lightning, 
in the wind and the night, those demons were thought 
to dwell; and the shepherds were greatly afraid of 
them. They used to utter magic incantations and 
go through all sorts of weird ceremonies in their 
efforts to win the favor of those spirits. They used 
to offer sacrifices to them, burning the firstborn 
of their flocks, and often even of their own children, 
so that those spirits might be pleased and give to the 
worshipers many more sheep and children. 


2 


These Semite shepherds were divided into many 
groups, and each of these groups consisted of several 
tribes or clans. Each tribe had its favorite spirit 
which—so the people believed—went with it and 
helped it fight the other tribes. But often these 
clans found it necessary to change favorites, for 
each demon was believed to have power only over a 
certain bit of desert. Therefore when a clan moved 
a long distance it usually threw over the old spirit, 
and took up a new one. 

Idols of wood and stone were set up to represent 


24 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


those spirits. And in time these idols came to be 
thought of as real gods. 

There was constant warfare between the tribes, 
for there were exceedingly few springs of water in 
the desert, and many flocks to drink them dry. 
The tribes fought for the possession of those springs 
of water just as nowadays the nations fight for the 
possession of wells of oil or mines of coal. There was 
no law regulating the conduct of the clans, and al- 
ways they were stealing sheep and wives and children 
from each other. They murdered or enslaved their 
defeated foes, they stole and cheated, they sweltered 
and froze to death, they hungered and went mad 
from thirst. 

Their life was hard and unhappy because of the 
barrenness of the soil on which they lived. 


3 


Only far to the north of the great desert is there 
a moist and less ungenerous region. For want of 
a better name, modern historians have called it the 
Fertile Crescent, for it is shaped somewhat like a 
quarter-moon. Of course, that Crescent acted 
like a magnet upon the thirsting Semites in the 
wilderness. They were forever struggling to reach 
it, plunging out one after the other, scrambling 
desperately to get a foothold in the rich soft soil, 
falling back, trying again, falling back, trying still 
again—and finally beating their way in and re- 
maining there. Like hot oil spluttering out of a 
frying pan, so were those famished and desperate 
tribes as they came charging out of the desert. 

They began coming out many thousands of years 


1.—On to the Fertile Crescent 


26 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


ago, and by the time of the dawn of history certain 
of them had already grown very old in the rich 
Crescent lands. Indeed, when one little group of 
those tribes, the group which we have since come 
to call the Hebrews, belatedly attempted to invade 
that Crescent, they found it already overcrowded 
with inhabitants. 

There were first of all the non-Semitic peoples 
who had drifted there from many directions, 
and had very early begun to cultivate the soil 
and develop some sort of civilization. Along the 
Nile there were the Egyptians with an amazingly 
high culture. Far to the north, in what we now 
call Syria, there were the Hittites. Along the 
garden lands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers 
there were remnants of the Sumerians, a strange 
and at present little known people, who were among 
the first to invent a method of writing. And in and 
among these non-Semitic people were the hordes of 
early invaders from the desert: the Amorites, or 
Canaanites, or Phoenicians, or Babylonians, as they 
were called in different places. 


4 


It was not easy for the still half-barbaric Hebrews, 
with their clumsy stone weapons and feeble strength, 
to fight their way into those well-settled lands. 
Many times they tried, hurling themselves with all 
their might against the fortifications in their path. 
Their particular goal seems to have been that narrow 
strip of land we now call Palestine, and desperately 
they fought for its possession against the Canaanites 
who lived there. Several times the invaders, led 


THE STORY OPENS 27 


by patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
managed to break their way in; but they were not 
allowed to remain in peace. The wells which they 
dug were filled with stones and rubbish by their 
enemies; their sheep were stolen; and occasionally 
they themselves were massacred. 

Then, to add to all these hardships, there seems 
to have come a great famine in the land. The wells 
became utterly dry and the flocks began to dwindle 
for lack of food and drink. Death stared those 
harassed Hebrews in the face. All about them were 
their foes, the Canaanites, swooping down on them 
in’ surprise attacks and carrying off what famished 
sheep and goats were left to them. There was no 
sense in remaining longer in the land, especially 
since the rumor had reached them that far off in 
Egypt there was drink aplenty, and also much grain 
stored away. It was a tremendous distance to the 
lands of the Nile, a journey for them of many weeks 
—though a train now can cover it in little more than 
half a day—but nevertheless many of the Hebrews 
turned to go there. They folded their tents, gathered 
together the remnants of their lean and sunken-eyed 
flocks, and began the long journey toward Egypt. 

And with that journey the ancient Hebrew shep- 
herds enter into the realm of history. 


CHAPTER II 


HOW THE HEBREWS LOST AND REGAINED THEIR 
FREEDOM, TOOK UNTO THEMSELVES A GOD, AND 
TRIED AGAIN TO SETTLE IN THE FERTILE CRES- 
CENT 


Just what happened when those Hebrew wan- 
derers straggled into Egypt we can only vaguely 
guess. All the hundreds of Egyptian records thus 
far unearthed tell us nothing of the episode; and 
the account in the Bible is not altogether clear on 
the subject. No doubt the scholars now busily 
digging away in the pyramids and mounds of Egypt 
will soon have all sorts of new secrets to tell us, so 
that in a little while it may be possible to make 
this chapter in the story of the Jews far less brief 
and sketchy than it must be left to-day. 

All we can say now with any certainty is that 
the Hebrew shepherds who wandered to Egypt in 
search of food did not have to penetrate far into 
the land. They stopped in a large tract of meadows 
called the Land of Goshen, in the eastern part of 
the Nile delta, and there they settled down. But 
then, after a lapse of years, a powerful king arose 
in Egypt, and marching down on the little settle- 
ment of aliens, he took them all into slavery. That 
king, or pharaoh as he was called, was probably 
Ramses II, who lived some thirty-two hundred 
years ago and was a little crazy with the desire to 


ON TO CANAAN 29 


build huge temples and palaces and monuments 
to himself and his many gods. 

To satisfy this frenzied desire he needed myriads 
of slaves, for there were huge tracts to clear and 
vast foundations to dig, and all sorts of quarrying 
and hoisting and dragging to be done. Even to-day, 
when we have steam-shovels and pile-drivers and 
innumerable other labor-saving devices, we are 
constantly in need of unskilled laborers in very 
large numbers. One can easily see how much 
greater the need must have been in days when 
hardly the simplest of machinery had yet been in- 
vented. 


2 


So the wild Hebrews, men who all along had lived 
the free and foot-loose life of desert nomads, suddenly 
discovered themselves the most abject of slaves. 
All their days they had to cringe beneath the lash 
of the taskmasters while they sweated at making 
bricks or quarrying stone. For those Hebrews it 
was the first. taste of a misery which their descend- 
ants were to experience many times over, and the 
bitter memory it left in their minds was never allowed 
to fade away. 

The oppression lasted many years, for Ramses 
II reigned a long time. But soon after his death 
the power of Egypt began to crumble. That foolish 
pharoah had exhausted his empire with his extrava- 
gance, and from all sides the enemies began to 
sweep down on the prostrate land. Hordes of bar- 
baric invaders came charging in from Libya, and 
bands of ravenous pirates sailed down from the 


30 ° STRANGER THAN FICTION 


islands of the Mediterranean Sea. Desolation and 
distress covered the face of all Egypt. To the 
simple-minded Hebrews it seemed as though an 
angry and avenging god were visiting fell plagues 
on the land for its sins. 

And in the confusion, while the Egyptians were 
straining with all their might to fight off the savage 
invaders, the Hebrew slaves got away. 

Their leader in the rebellion and escape was a 
young Hebrew named Moses. According to the 
Bible story, Moses had been adopted as a child 
by an Egyptian princess, and brought up in the 
royal court. He had never been a slave, and there- 
fore was able to appreciate the more clearly how 
bitter was the plight of his brethren. But instead 
of cutting himself off completely from them and 
enjoying his own good fortune, he seems as a young 
man to have taken their part against their task- 
masters, with the result that finally he had to flee 
from the land. He wandered about in the wilder- 
ness with a tribe of Kenites—a people related to 
the Hebrews—and tasting among them the joys 
of free nomad life, he felt the call to go back and 
deliver his brethren. 

Without a leader like Moses it is doubtful whether 
the Hebrews, grown timid and cowardly under the 
lash of the Egyptians, would ever have been able 
to free themselves. The worst evil of continued 
oppression is not so much that it cripples the bodies 
of the victims, as that it crushes their souls. It 
robs them of courage and self-reliance. Even after 
Moses succeeded in getting his brethren to flee from 
Egypt, it was: all he could do to keep them from 


ON TO CANAAN 31 


running back again. In the desert they were faced 
with hardships they had not known in Goshen— 
lack of food and water, for instance—and many of 
them were ready to barter every bit of their new 
freedom for the greasy ‘‘fleshpots of Egypt.” 


3 


Compared with enormous revolutions like that 
in France in the eighteenth century, or the one in 
Russia in recent years, the uprising of those few 
Hebrew slaves three thousand years ago in Egypt 
appears a quite trivial incident. Yet, because of 
the hold the story of that uprising took on the minds 
of succeeding generations, the event itself looms 
up as one of the most important in all history. 
Again and again in these three thousand years, 
rebels against oppression and tyranny have turned 
for courage to that old story of the Exodus from 


Egypt. 
4. 


Moses undertook no easy task when he attempted 
to lead those slaves to freedom. First of all he had 
to get them safely out of Egypt, and that meant 
avoiding the caravan routes—for they were infested 
with pirates, or were guarded by Egyptian garrisons. 
Then he had to give them a religion, so that they 
might have the courage to withstand the hardships 
of the desert. In Egypt the Hebrews had forgotten 
the god they had worshiped when they were shep- 
herds. They had no doubt accepted the gods of 
the Egyptians in his place. But now, out in the 
wild places once more, they believed those Egyptian 


32 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


gods were not present, and they were therefore 
left without any faith. 

Moses quickly felt his people’s need, and as soon 
as he could he led them to a certain mountain called 
Sinai or Horeb, which was believed by his Kenite 
friends to be the dwelling-place of their god Yahveh.* 
At that holy mountain the Hebrews solemnly swore 
to accept Yahveh as their one and only god, and it 
was believed that in return Yahveh would be their 
special protector. The people’s duties in this cove- 
nant were expressed in certain commands which were 
easily remembered because they were ten in num- 
ber, and could be ticked off on one’s ten fingers. 
A wooden shrine called the Ark was made to sym- 
bolize the shielding protection of Yahveh, and 
wherever the Hebrews wandered, there went also 
that Ark. For, being still a primitive folk, they 
could firmly believe that the presence of the Ark 
brought them safety! 


5 


But even after this acceptance of the protection 
of Yahveh, the runaway slaves still remained cowed 
and frightened. It had been Moses’ plan to go 
directly from the Holy Mountain up to Canaan in 
the Fertile Crescent. But when his followers heard 
of the prowess and might of the inhabitants of that 
region, they refused to attempt to invade it. In- 
stead they wandered about in the desert lands just 


* Through the mistake of an ignorant translator of the Bible, 
we have come to speak of this god as Jehovah, but his real 
name was Yahveh, which may have meant ‘The Creator,” or 
perhaps “The Thunderer.”’ 


ga Gi Woes S39 WAYS 


34 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


below Canaan, tending their flocks and _ herds, 
fighting hostile tribes, starving at times, dying of 
disease and snake bites and all manner of other 
afflictions, but not daring to strike out toward the 
rich soil on the north. 

The Bible tells us the Hebrews wandered forty 
years in the waste lands before they plucked up 
courage enough to invade the Crescent. Evidently 
it was first necessary for the slave generation to 
die off, and for a tougher and more desperate gen- 
eration to arise. We are told that Moses was still 
alive when that second generation had grown up, 
and though already an old and broken man, he was 
quick to lead them in the invasion. The little band of 
hungry wanderers packed up their belongings, gath- 
ered their few flocks and herds, and letting the Holy 
Ark lead their columns, marched off toward Canaan. 

They thought to enter the coveted little domain 
from the east of the River Jordan, and so they moved 
around to the steppe-land on that side. They were 
not allowed to march in peace, however, for at every 
turn they were attacked by unfriendly tribes. But 
there was no stopping that swarm of desperate, 
home-hungry nomads. They proved utterly irresist- 
ible as they came sweeping over the plain. 

And at last, fighting almost every inch of the way, 
Yahveh’s followers struggled through to the Jordan. 

But there, within sight of the little land to which 
Moses had tried all those years to lead his horde 
of runaways, the aged leader died. He died and was 
buried no one knows where; but his memory has 
gone down throughout all the ages as the first of 
the great warriors for freedom. 


CHAPTER III 


THE BRAWLING, ILL-ORGANIZED STRUGGLE OF 
THE HEBREWS TO MAKE CANAAN COMPLETELY 
THEIR OWN 


The invasion and conquest of Canaan was a long, 
difficult, and bloody affair. The Hebrews were 
poorly armed, for they still used flint knives and 
stone hatchets; and they were utterly untrained in 
organized warfare. The odds were heavily against 
them, for the Canaanites used chariots and fought 
with metal weapons and. were always able to take 
refuge in one or other of their many fortresses. 
Only the ferocity and desperation of the invaders 
made it possible for them to conquer at all. They 
had come to hate with all their being the arid desert 
and the wanderer’s life. They craved a bit of this 
land that—to use their own metaphor—‘‘flowed with 
milk and honey’’; and they were ready to go to any 
extremes to satisfy that craving. 

People nowadays are greatly shocked when they 
read the Biblical account of the conquest of Canaan. 
When those ancient Hebrews conquered a city they 
followed the custom of the time and ‘‘devoted”’ it 
to their god: that is, they stole all the gold and 
silver, butchered all the cattle and human beings, 
and then burnt the whole place to the ground. They 
plundered and pillaged right and left, razed for- 
tresses, and decimated whole tribes. ‘They were 


36 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


like ravenous beasts out of the wilderness! But we 
need hardly urge in their defense that they were 
still half-savages. We need only remember that 
invading armies even in our own time behave not 
one whit less bestially. ... 


2 


The invasion was not accomplished by all the 
tribes united in one definite campaign. They fought 
their way into the land separately, and then settled 
down in different localities. For instance, the tribe 
called Judah and that called Simeon went to the 
southern part of Canaan. With them went also 
the Kenites, among whom Moses had lived as a 
young man. The tribe of Ephraim and half the 
tribe of Manasseh settled down in the center of the 
land; and the other tribes wandered off to the north 
and almost lost themselves among the Canaanites 
there. 

It was a wildly daring and dangerous undertak- 
ing—that invasion of Canaan by the Hebrews. 
Once they got into the land they found themselves 
surrounded by enemies on every side. And worse 
still, they were cut off from each other by lines of 
Canaanite fortresses. Clearly they had to kill or 
be killed. They had to crowd out and murder their 
foes, or else be crowded out and murdered them- 
selves. 


3 


Then there was another difficulty: the Hebrews, 
who were wanderers and shepherds by long training, 
suddenly had to settle down and become farmers. — 


THE STRUGGLE FOR A HOME 37 


They had to give up their life in open tents and 
take instead to huddled, ill-smelling stone villages 
inclosed by thick high walls. They had to take up 
the life of the very people against whom they were 
fighting. 

Of course, there was grave danger that in taking 
up the life of the enemy, the Hebrews might also 
take up his gods and morals. And many of the 
Hebrews succumbed to that danger. Yahveh be- 
longed to the desert, and therefore many of the 
Hebrews feared his power did not extend to this 
fertile land they had entered. They imagined they 
had to worship the gods of this new country, the 
Canaanite gods, the Baalim as they were called. 
Every hill and field and spring had its little Baal 
to be fed with human or.animal sacrifices, and hon- 
ored at festivals which often were little more than 
drunken debauches. If this was not done it was 
imagined that the field would not yield a crop, or the 
spring would dry up. The sun, moon, and stars 
had to be worshiped because they were believed to 
control the weather, and the household idols—which 
were a little like the totem-poles of the American 
Indians—had to be respected because they were 
supposed to localize the spirits of dead ancestors. 

The natives believed that every accident or mis- 
fortune was a sign that some little local god or other 
had been slighted; and the Hebrews were not long 
in accepting that belief. They made very poor 
farmers and their crops often failed; but instead of 
laying the blame for the failure on their ignorance 
of husbandry, they laid it on their neglect of the 
native idols. So in many sections we find the con- 


38 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


querors, although still worshiping Yahveh, “played 
safe’? by sacrificing also to a dozen other gods. 

In districts where that practice of ‘‘playing safe”’ 
was most common, it was almost impossible to tell 
who were the conquerors and who the conquered. 
The mingling of gods was often followed by the 
mingling of families, and in certain regions the He- 
brews and their enemies became practically one 
people. Thus the half of the tribe of Manasseh 
that had been left on the east side of the Jordan was 
almost completely absorbed by the Arameans there, 
and the tribe of Reuben almost lost itself among the 
Moabites. Asher took to the sea and became very 
largely Phoenician. 

After all, there was no great difference in blood 
between the Hebrews and these other peoples. They 
were all Semites who at one time or another in the 
past had been nomads in the great Arabian Desert. 
They all belonged to the same cultural stock, and 
spoke more or less the same language. 


4 


And yet, for reasons we cannot quite understand 
now, those Hebrews did not lose themselves en- 
tirely in their Canaanite surroundings. Perhaps 
it was because they had not yet been in the land 
long enough to be completely assimilated; or per- 
haps there was something in the mental make-up 
of those invaders, memories of their hard past in 
Egypt and of their covenant with Yahveh at the 
Holy Mountain in the wilderness, that rendered 
them incapable of complete assimilation. 

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that they 


THE STRUGGLE FOR A HOME 39 


persisted as a separate people. Divided as they were 
into many little tribes, each with its own chieftain— 
or judge, as he was called—and surrounded by 
overwhelming hosts of the enemy, they still preserved 
their identity. 

Their judges were not drawn from any one par- 
ticular class, for there were no class distinctions 
among the Hebrews at that time. There were 
neither learned nor ignorant among them, for none 
at all could read or write. There were no rich or 
poor, for there was practically no private property. 
One man was as good as another, and flocks, herds, 
and lands belonged to all the members of the tribe 
together. 

Their social life was completely democratic. In 
time of danger, when the enemy pressed down on 
them, they usually picked the most daring fighter 
in the tribe to be their leader in battle. And when 
the battle was over, this leader often continued as 
head of the tribe for a time. But there was nothing 
permanent about the office—which was just as well, 
considering the type of man who sometimes became 
leader. For instance, Jepthah who led the Gilead- 
ites in a successful sortie against the Ammonites, 
was a wild half-breed outlaw before his election. 
Samson, of the tribe of Dan, was little more than 
a burly, untamed strong-man with enormous muscles 
but pygmy sense. And no doubt other of the judges 
during this period were men of like inferior quality. 


5 


The years passed. One generation died and an- 
other arose. But still no peace came to the Hebrews. 


40 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


The people whom they had dispossessed, the Canaan- 
ites and Moabites and Ammonites, kept returning 
year after year, raiding, pillaging, and burning the 
little settlements. And only the lack of union 
among those marauders saved the disunited Hebrews: 
from utter destruction. 

But then came the Philistines. 

The Philistines were not a Semitic people. They 
had not come up from the desert of Arabia, but down 
in ships from the islands of the Mediterranean. 
They had been among those pirate bands that had 
raided the coast of Egypt when the Hebrews es- 
ecaped from slavery, and now they were settled 
along the shore of southern Canaan. Gradually 
they had begun to creep inland, beating down the 
Canaanite farmers in their path, until their talons 
were fastened on the foothills right below the Hebrew 
settlements. 

It was inevitable of course that they and the He- 
brews should meet and clash. Both were trying to 
conquer the land from opposite directions at the same 
time. There had been skirmishes between them in 
the days of Samson, but the Hebrews had not then 
realized. the danger of this new enemy. They had 
trusted to the tribes nearest the Philistines to fight 
them off unaided. 

When the Philistines massed their troops, there- 
fore, and made their first real attack, it brought 
the Hebrews very rudely to their senses. They went 
down to a crushing defeat, and then ran helter- 
skelter to get the Holy Ark of Yahveh which they 
had left behind them in one of their new cities. 
Thinking the Ark would lead them to certain vic- 


3.—The Struggle for a Home 


42 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


tory, they went out to battle against the Philistines 
a second time—and again they were defeated. 
And more than that—the Holy Ark was actually 
taken from them by the enemy! It was carried off 
by the Philistines to their stronghold in Ashdod, 
and mockingly placed on exhibition in the temple 
of their own god, Dagon! 

Consternation spread through the ranks of the 
Hebrews. They realized at last that this new enemy 
was not to be classed with the scattered tribes of 
Semites whom they had fought in the past. These 
Philistines were all united and fought as one man. 
It was ‘evident that to beat them off the Hebrews 
would have to resort to tactics they never before 
had tried. They would have to unite. The warriors 
of all the tribes would have to rally together and 
stand shoulder to shoulder under the leadership 
of one man. They would have to become a nation 
SU lashes veer 


CHAPTER IV 


CONTINUED OPPOSITION FORCES THE HEBREW 
TRIBES TO UNITE AT LAST UNDER A SINGLE 
KING 


The Philistines to the west were pressing on into 
the land, creeping over the Hebrew fields and for- 
tresses like the incoming tide over the rocks on a 
beach. And to add to the distress, an old foe, the 
Ammonite people, began to sweep in upon them 
from the desert to the east. The little Hebrew 
people seemed about to be drowned in the sea of 
its enemies. 

Just in time, however, there arose a leader quick 
and courageous enough to avert the doom. He was 
a farmer named Saul, a fearless, quick-tempered 
man who belonged to one of the northern tribes. 
When the news reached him that the Ammonites 
had captured a Hebrew stronghold on the east side 
of the Jordan, he gathered the warriors of all the 
tribes, and with a threat of cruel vengeance if they 
refused to follow, went forth to repel the invader. 

All night he marched eastward, and when dawn 
came and the astounded Ammonites saw the united 
Hebrew army pouring out of the dark to attack 
them, they broke and fled in panic. Taken thus 
completely unawares, the Ammonites could not 
but go down to utter defeat. 

Saul was the hero of the hour. With one accord 


44 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


the elders turned to him as their leader. And at a 
holy place called Gilgal, high up in the hills of cen- 
tral Canaan, amid sacrifices to Yahveh, Saul was 
solemnly anointed King of the Hebrews. 


2 


Then began a new chapter in the struggle with the 
Philistines. Saul gathered his forces and prepared 
for attack. At first he was repulsed, and half his 
followers deserted him in terror; but in a little while 
he regained the offensive. Full at the enemy he 
hurled his men, slashing right and left—and then 
it was the Philistines who turned and fled. Back 
they fled westward, over hill and down dale, until 
at last they reached their own lands by the sea. 

Thus was the Philistine menace overcome. 


But still there was no peace. The Ammonites 
and Moabites and Amalekites were still there on 
the borders of Canaan, ready like hungry wolves 
to pounce down on any unprotected village. And 
the Philistines, for all that they had been so 
thoroughly beaten, continued to raid and plunder 
along the frontier. 

King Saul’s only palace was a tent’; his scepter 
was a sword; his courtiers were all hard-fighting 
soldiers. His whole reign was one unending war 
against his enemies. 


3 


Unfortunately, Saul was not so good a statesman 
as he was a warrior, or he might have been rewarded 


A KINGDOM AT LAST © 45 


with greater success. He could not deal well with 
men. He had always had a violent temper, and as 
the years passed he began to suffer more and more 
from queer spells of moodiness. To make matters 
worse, he assumed high and haughty airs. The 
result was that in the end he broke with one of his 
most powerful supporters, an old prophet and priest 
named Samuel. 

In those days there were to be found in all the 
Hebrew tribes, bands of religious zealots who went 
up and down the country shouting and singing 
excitedly about the glories of their god, Yahveh. 
(Nowadays the ‘‘Holy Rollers” and evangelists 
in our country carry on in very much the same way.) 
Those zealots were called in Hebrew neviim, which 
came to be translated ‘‘prophets,” although in 
the beginning it may have meant no more than 
‘“‘shouters.””? Most good Hebrew farmers probably 
thought those ‘‘shouters” a little crazy, but never- 
theless they stood in great awe of them. The 
neviim were supposed to possess all sorts of magic 
powers, and Samuel had great influence in the land 
because he was recognized as the chief of them. 
So it was a sorry day for Saul when he lost the old 
priest’s friendship. 

Nor was Samuel the only person whom the king an- 
tagonized. A certain gifted young musician named 
David had once been brought to cheer the king out of 
one of his frightful spells of melancholy. The minstrel 
succeeded, and so well that Saul asked him to remain 
on in the camp. And later, when he discovered the 
lad was as brave a soldier as he was a talented musi- 
cian, Saul made him the royal armor-bearer. 


46 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


But as the months passed, and this David’s prow- 
ess as a soldier came to be talked of among the 
people, Saul grew almost insanely jealous. Several 
times in his rage he even attempted to take the 
young man’s life. 

So David had to flee from the court. 

He fled to his own home in the south, in the land 
’of Judah, and there he gathered his clansmen, and 
set up in a cave as a robber chieftain. Saul and his 
army pursued him, and after a series of flights 
from one place to another, David was compelled 
to take refuge finally with the Philistines. Of course, 
the Philistines, still the bitter enemies of Saul, re- 
ceived the outlaw with open arms. ‘They were de- 
termined to wreak their vengeance on the man who 
once had so utterly defeated them, and now they 
thought the chance was theirs. By now Saul’s 
insane temper had become very like a disease, and 
it had robbed him of his bravest warriors. Many 
of his old chieftains had deserted him, and those 
fanatical Yahveh worshipers, the neviim, refused 
any longer to rally the people to his support. 


4 


All hope and courage seeped out of the king’s 
heart as he learned the Philistines were making 
ready for a new attack. Even though he was se- 
curely intrenched up on Mount Gilboa, Saul felt 
himself beaten before the enemy came in sight. 
And his troops, on seeing his despondency, also 
lost all heart. Fiercely the Philistines attacked, 
and the Hebrews crumbled under the blow. Desper- 
ately Saul tried to hold his lines—but in vain. The 


A KINGDOM AT LAST 47 


Hebrews flinched under the hail of arrows from the 
Philistine archers. Their ranks wavered, broke; 
and pellmell they fled before the enemy. 

The rout was complete. The three sons of Saul 
died fighting like lions, and the father, badly wounded, 
took his own life to escape capture. The next day 
the patrols of the Philistines, in their work of strip- 
ping the bodies of the slain, came across the dead 
king. They cut off his head and fastened the corpse 
to the walls of the city of Bethshean. And there it 
remained until certain Hebrews from the east side 
of the Jordan, remembering how years earlier Saul 
had delivered them from the Ammonite invaders, 
went at the risk of their lives and rescued the mu- 
tilated corpse. They brought it back to their own 
village, and there reverently they buried it under 
the village tree. 

So ended the life of Saul, the first king of the 
Hebrews. He had been a brave soldier and a loyal 
follower of Yahveh—but unfortunately he had also 
been just a bit unbalanced. 


CHAPTER V 


THE SECOND KING, DAVID, LEADS THE TRIBES 
TO VICTORY, AND WINS FOR THEM AN EMPIRE 


As soon as the news was brought to the outlaw, 
David, that Saul was dead, he took his men and 
marched quickly up into Judah to make himself 
the new king. But only the southern tribes would 
take part in his coronation. The northern tribes 
had all along felt themselves different from those 
in the south, and they now set up a king of their 
own, a son of Saul named Ishbaal.* 

The Philistines must have been highly satisfied 
with this arrangement, for they knew that so long 
as the Hebrews were divided, they were helpless 
prey. But David knew that too, and immediately 
he set himself the task of winning over the northern 
tribes to his standard. Full eight years passed before 
that task was accomplished, eight years of spying 
and bribing, of flattery and bloodshed. But finally 
David attained his end. Ishbaal was assassinated 
by two of his captains, and young David—he was 
still only thirty years of age—was for the second 
time crowned king. And not two now, but all 
twelve of the Hebrew tribes took part in the coro- 
nation. : 

No sooner was David re-crowned, however, than 


*See how popular the Canaanite god, Baal, had become 
among the Hebrews. Even the king’s son was named after him! 


DAVID WINS AN EMPIRE 49 


the Philistines became troublesome again. They had 
had no fear of the young man so long as he was an 
outlawed freebooter, or the leader of a few roving 
clans; but now that he was king of all Israel, they 
thought it well to snuff him out immediately. So 
down marched a great army on him, and he was 
forced to beat a retreat. But recklessly they pushed 
on after him, and then of a sudden they discovered 
themselves trapped. David had lured them into 
a most unfavorable strategic position, and then 
turned and attacked. Of a sudden he came 
crashing back at them, and in utter bewilderment 
they were forced to recoil. A second time his little 
army struck them a smashing blow, routing them 
completely. And then in terrible confusion the 
Philistines fled back to their own lands. 


2 


David was too wise to repeat their mistake and 
pursue his enemies. Instead he let them escape, 
and addressed himself to making his own throne 
completely safe. He realized that his first need 
was a capital, but no city already in his possession 
could possibly fill the need. Favoring one city 
would certainly have aroused the jealously of all 
the rest; establishing his throne within the land of 
one tribe would immediately have brought him into 
disfavor with all the others. There was anything 
but a feeling of complete union among the Hebrew 
clans, and the antagonism—especially between the 
north and south—seemed ready to break out into 
open dissension on the least provocation. 

Early in the history of the United States a capital 


50 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


had to be chosen, and it was found necessary, in 
order to avoid all jealousies, to build an entirely 
new city: Washington. That was a recurrence 
in a measure of David’s experience, except that the 
Hebrew king did not build a city—he and his people 
were altogether too poor for that—but captured 
one. 

In the midst of the kingdom lay a certain little 
fortress which from the very beginning of the in- 
vasion of Canaan had withstood all the attacks of 
the Hebrews. It was called Jerusalem, which may 
have meant ‘City of Peace,” or more probably 
“City of Shalim,” a Canaanite god. It was built 
high up on a spur, and for that reason was almost 
unconquerable by ordinary methods of attack. 

Only by climbing with his men up into the very 
heart of the city through the huge stone water- 
tunnel, was David able to get at its inhabitants 
and force them to surrender. And this city, Jerusa- 
lem, he made his capital. 


3 


With that matter attended to, David was now 
free to turn on the ring of foes surrounding his 
people. First he attacked the Philistines, marching 
right through their lands and taking Gath, their chief 
city. The Holy Ark of Yahveh which had been in 
Philistine hands so many years, was at last retaken 
and brought in triumph to the capital, Jerusalem. 
And Yahveh was thus recognized officially and 
formally as the god of the Hebrew Kingdom. 

The Philistines quite thoroughly shown their 
place, David next turned on the Moabites and 


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: 
e 
e 
e 
e 
] 
e 
e 
e 
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e 
e 


52 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


trampled them into harmlessness. (We are told 
he slaughtered two out of every three men in all 
the Moabite army!) Next the Ammonites were 
assailed, and after they were decisively beaten in 
battle, their soldiers were all condemned to captivity. 
Then the Arameans, and a little later the Edomites, 
and finally the Amalekites were all thoroughly 
subdued. Only the Phoenicians on the north were 
spared, for they had always been too busy as sea- 
faring traders on the Mediterranean ever to trouble 
the Hebrews. 


4 


David now felt in a position to devote himself 
to internal affairs. First he undertook the task of 
beautifying his capital, for his victorious wars had 
filled his storehouses to overflowing with all manner 
of precious booty. He had gold and silver and 
brass and precious wood aplenty; also he had many 
captives to slave in his labor-gangs as once his own 
forefathers had slaved in the labor-gangs of the 
Egyptians. All he lacked was a knowledge of what 
and how to build. He and his people had always 
been poor and struggling. Until very recently they 
had lived in tents, and had eaten and slept and 
worshiped like barbarians. 

But now David wanted to bring a measure of 
beauty and civilization into the life of his people. 
He wanted to erect a great palace and a great temple, 
and adorn them with all the treasures whereof he was 
master. He wanted to show the world of his time— 
and also his own followers—that he was no longer 
a robber-chieftain but a rich and mighty monarch. 


— 


DAVID WINS AN EMPIRE 53 


It was to the Phoenicians, of course, that he had to 
turn for help. They were men of the world, great 
travelers who were well acquainted with the monu- 
ments and palaces of distant emperors and princes. 
They claimed to know all about architecture and 
decoration, and were glad to sell their services to 
this newly-rich neighbor of theirs. 


Ds 


When David took hold of Jerusalem, it must have 
been much like any other Canaanite town. From 
end to end its length was probably that of ten of our 
city blocks, and surrounding it was a tremendously 
high wall of stone. Between two massive towers 
projecting from this wall was a narrow entrance 
closed by a wooden portcullis. This entrance was 
paved with uneven cobblestones, and spread like 
a fan into a maze of crooked little lanes running 
all through the town. The houses were flat-roofed, 
one-story huts of stone plastered with mud; and 
there was no furniture inside them. The people ate 
and slept on the ground, and the animals ate and 
slept there with them. Horrid smells filled every 
corner of the town, for of course there were no sewers 
and no street-cleaning department. Nasty in- 
sects buzzed around everywhere, for refuse rotted 
in front of every house. Savage, half-starved dogs 
prowled about, and here and there dirty little chil- 
dren, naked save for the good-luck charms hung 
around their necks, with bellies swollen from drink- 
ing foul water, and faces covered with sores and 
sears, played amid the filth or ran errands. 

Such was the Jerusalem that became the capital 


54 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


of David’s empire. There he establish his harem of 
twenty or thirty wives—and right proud he must 
have been of it, for in those days the might of a 
monarch was largely judged by the size of his harem— 
and there he served as high priest and chief justice 
and king. There, too, his appetite grew and he 
began to usurp more and more privileges and per- 
quisites. He began to forget that he was king only 
because his people had elected him to that office. 
He began to make himself almost a tyrant, like the 
kings of all the other peoples of the Orient. Once 
he even stole away the wife of one of his soldiers, 
and afterwards had the man killed to get him out of 
his sight. His new-found glory went to his head, 
and he grew lax in performing his duties as ruler. 


6 


The people in their turn grew restive and rebellious. 
Absalom, one of David’s own sons, started a civil 
war that almost swept the old man from his throne. 
The whole country seethed with plots and con- 
spiracies and rumors of revolution. Within the 
capital there was constant whispering and spying, 
for as the king aged, each of his many sons began 
scheming to make himself the successor. The 
unity among the tribes which David had managed 
with such great effort to bring about, began rapidly 
to break down again. And on all the borders the 
’ defeated and subject foes watched with vengeful 
eyes for their chance to regain their freedom. 

And just then, when the new and hastily built em- 
pire seemed about to topple down and be destroyed 
forever, David, its builder died. 


DAVID WINS AN EMPIRE 50 


A romantic figure is this second king of Israel, a 
man who could think quickly, fight courageously, 
and love intensely. If he did not achieve more with 
his tremendous talents, it was probably because to 
his dying day he still retained the mind of—a 
robber-chieftain. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE THIRD KING, SOLOMON, LOSES THE EMPIRE 
THROUGH HIS EXTRAVAGANCE, AND BRINGS 
RUIN TO HIS PEOPLE 


There had really been two different Davids on the 
throne of Israel: first the attractive young chieftain 
struggling to win peace and security for his people, 
and later the slack old king desirous of nothing so 
much as pleasure and power for himself. Had his 
successor chosen to follow the first David, much of 
the sad history I am about to relate might never have 
occurred. As it was, however, the successor chose 
rather to emulate the second David, and ill-fortune 
had to follow. 

The successor was David’s favorite son, Solomon, 
and to this day he is usually spoken of as a person 
of surpassing wisdom. Judged by his life and work, 
however, the real Solomon was rather a person of 
unrestrained cruelty, thoughtlessness, and _self-in- 
dulgence. There is no gainsaying that he was 
clever; he could coin smart proverbs and solve 
riddles. Nevertheless he was far from wise, for 
his rule in Israel brought little to his people save 
idolatry, corruption, misery, and debt. 

The whole trouble, of course, ‘was that Solomon 
desired only to imitate the extravagant, loose-living 
Oriental monarchs around him. His dream was to 
make his reign magnificent and splendid in that 


SOLOMON RUINS ALL 57 


loud, garish, and despotic fashion toward which his 
father had leaned in his latter days. But David 
had been held back from going to extremes by his 
fear of the neviim, or perhaps by an innate simplicity. 
Try all he might, the robber-chieftain’s imitation 
of a grand Oriental emperor could not be more than 
a rather sorry and feeble failure. It took a man 
born to the purple to show how far such imitation 
could be carried. 


2 


One of the first things the young king decided on 
having was a grand palace; and very soon tens of 
thousands of slaves were at work, felling trees far 
north in Lebanon, and quarrying limestone near 
Jerusalem. Phoenicians were called in to serve as 
architects, and to pay for their hire Solomon had to 
provide their king annually with tremendous quan- 
tities of grain and other food-stuffs. Throughout 
the land there was a great bustle and turmoil and 
confusion; in the fields, the forests, down in the 
quarries, and up on the highroads, there was great 
groaning because of the travail. Everywhere slaves 
were writhing beneath the lash of Solomon’s task- 
masters, and freemen were muttering because of the 
demands of Solomon’s taxgatherers. But still the 
work went on. 

The subject peoples on the borders, seizing their 
long-awaited chance, openly rebelled. The Edomites 
broke away from the Hebrew empire and proclaimed 
their independence; so did the Moabites and the 
Arameans. And Solomon, who was anything but a 
warrior, let them go. He realized their revolt meant 


58 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


a great loss in revenue to him, but rather than 
attempt to recapture them, he preferred to crush 
his own people more severely. First he forced all 
the Canaanites still living in Palestine into slavery; 
later he compelled even the Hebrew freemen to 
become his slaves for one month out of every three. 
And from every field that was harvested and every 
flock that was sheared, a rich portion was taxed 
away to fill the coffers of the ambitious king. 


3 


At last, after many years, the palace was com- 
pleted. It stood on a hill hard-by the old fortress 
of Jerusalem, and no doubt it appeared a thing of 
almost incredible magnificence to the simple Hebrews. 
Of course, compared with the tremendous palaces 
of the emperors of Egypt and Babylon and India, 
this one of Solomon’s was a rather tiny and tawdry 
affair. It had been designed by men who were not 
artists but merely mechanics trying vainly to imi- 
tate artists; and all the realms of the monarch who 
built it, could have been tucked away in the narrow- 
est corner of a really full-sized empire. But to those 
children of a primitive desert-folk that had lived 
in goatskin tents throughout its history, the palace 
on Mount Moriah must have seemed the most won- 
drous thing ever built by men. 

The palace consisted of several buildings: an 
armory, an assembly hall, a throne room or court 
of justice, and a harem large enough to house the 
king’s many hundreds of wives. There was also a 
temple, a small building only one hundred feet 
long by about thirty feet wide, in which the Ark 


SOLOMON RUINS ALL 59 


of Yahveh was housed. It is hardly possible that 
this temple meant as much to Solomon as did the 
palace, for he spent only half as much time building 
it. Perhaps he looked on it more as a royal chapel 
than anything else. 

But as it happened, that temple, with the priests 
it attracted, proved in after years to be the salvation 
of Solomon’s dynasty; and during many centuries 
the memory of it did more to perpetuate Israel on 
earth than perhaps any other earthly thing. Un- 
doubtedly that little temple, smaller by far than 
any one of a hundred city synagogues in America 
to-day, smaller even than many village churches 
scattered in every corner of our world—that little 
temple has proved infinitely the most significant 
building ever erected by the hands of man. 


t 


Solomon lavished his people’s money on other 
things also: roads for his chariots and horses, store- 
depots, and fortresses. Once when he managed to 
win the daughter of the mighty pharoah of Egypt 
for one of his wives—she was a great ‘‘catch”’ for 
Solomon!-—he built her a special villa on the highest 
spot in the palace grounds. His expenses mounted 
at a mad rate, and his people were ground down 
until not another penny could be got out of them. 
So the king took to ‘“‘trading,’’ which in those days 
really meant piracy, and sent a fleet of ships to far 
distant parts of his world in search of gold and silver. 

Even then the income of the spendthrift king 
could not keep pace with his outlay, and he had to 
resort at last to borrowing. Hiram, the rich king 


60 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


of the Phoenician city of Tyre, after lending him 
millions and millions, finally grew frightened and 
suddenly demanded his money back. Solomon, 
of course, was completely out of cash, and all he 
could do was to offer Hiram twenty of his cities. 
Hiram accepted, but when later he came to look 
at those cities, he found he had been cheated. They 
were not worth nearly the amount of money he had 
advanced to Solomon. But Hiram had in his day 
himself done a tidy bit of cheating, and he did not 
dare to make much of a fuss. 


5 


And so, by tyranny and oppression, by piracy 
and fraud, Solomon managed to carry out his am- 
bitious schemes. Perhaps he thought he was suc- 
ceeding admirably in winning the respect of the 
great nations roundabout. But a more ruinous 
success it would have been difficult to imagine. 
The many foreign princesses he took into his harem 
brought with them their strange gods and priests. 
Yahveh was no longer the sole god of Israel; even 
his own temple on Mount Moriah he had to share 
with the foreign idols. And the religious practices 
most in favor throughout the land were low and 
lewd and unclean. Poverty and distress stalked 
everywhere among the people, and only dread of 
the harshness of that petty tyrant on the throne 
kept thousands of embittered Hebrews from leaping 
to arms. The neviim went up and down the land 
seeking to stir the people to rebellion, but only 
once was there an uprising, and Solomon crushed 
that in an instant. 


THE DESERT 


Wild Hebrew Shepherds 


THE WILDERNESS 


Where they wander many years 


Invasion of S 


Where RAN, gate 
with the “native iribes 


Hebrews feght 43 separate tribes 
SAMSON, etc. ) 


They unite al last undera King 


They attain imperial power 


SOLOMON They beyin to lose their power 
Division of the Hingdom 


JUDAH ISRAEL 
Chart A. The Adventures of the Jews, Part I 


62 ~ STRANGER THAN FICTION 


And thus in peace Solomon ruled and reveled, 
and in peace Solomon died. But it was peace more 
terrible by far than war. A thousand fierce hatreds 
were pent up in the people, a thousand hatreds 
ready at the first chance to break loose and blow 
to fragments all that so long had smothered them. 
It was peace, yes—but only the peace ever nearer 
the breaking-point of war. And such was the reign 
of the third king in Israel, the reign of that brilliant 
fool whose name was Solomon. 


CHAPTER VII 


CIVIL WAR RENDS THE NATION INTO TWO KING- 
DOMS, BOTH OF WHICH ARE SWALLOWED UP BY 
THE NEIGHBORING EMPIRES 


Revolution followed almost immediately. The 
northern tribes sent to ask the new king what policy 
he intended to pursue, and when the silly youth 
boasted that he would rule with even greater despot- 
ism than his father, the tribesmen murdered his 
overseer and declared their independence. They 
cut themselves loose from the south and took for 
their king the heroic man who had led that one 
attempt at revolution during Solomon’s reign. 

And from then on for many years there were two 
kings and two kingdoms in Palestine. There was 
Israel on the north, and Judah on the south; and 
rare indeed were the periods when they were not 
at each other’s throats. 

The division was not an even one, for the terri- 
tory of Israel was three times as large as that of 
Judah. More than that, it contained many rich 
valleys and highroads, while the southern kingdom 
was rocky, dry, and cut off from everything save 
the raids of the desert savages. But the division, 
uneven as it may have been, was largely a natural 
one. The people of Israel inhabited a region so 
different from that of the people of Judah that their 
whole thought and life were different. The nor- 


64 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


therners were farmers or traders, and contact with 
alien peoples and customs had influenced them enor- 
mously. The southerners, on the other hand, were 
shepherds, and in many respects were still very 
like their ancestors who had roamed about in the 
desert. Their worship of Yahveh had changed less 
and been less corrupted than the worship in the 
north; and their respect for those queer neviim was 
greater. 


2 


But different as were the two kingdoms, their 
histories for over two hundred years were very 
similar. Like all the other little nations of the 
East, they spent much of their time anointing and 
assassinating their kings. Nadab, the second king 
of Israel, reigned one year and was murdered by 
his successor, Baasha; Baasha’s successor reigned 
one year and was murdered by Zimri; Zimri reigned 
seven days and was driven to suicide by Omri. . 
And so it went on. Queen Athaliah of Judah seized 
the throne and murdered her own grandchildren in 
order to make her throne firm. But she in turn was 
soon murdered—as was her successor, Joash, and 
his successor, Amaziah. .. . Periods of peace and 
prosperity did occur—but they were rare and never 
lasted long. When the two kingdoms were not 
fighting their common enemies, they were insanely 
fighting each other. 

And thus, quarreling, fighting, growing rich and 
corrupt, or poor and desolate, intriguing with one 
enemy to attack another and usually falling prey 
to both, the two little Hebrew kingdoms went down 


THE HOUSE DIVIDED 65 


to their doom. Even had they been united they 
might not have been able to withstand the enemies 
roundabout; but divided as they were, they had not 
even a trace of a chance. 


3 


Palestine was the victim of almost incessant in- 
vasion, because it was a frail bridge between two 
continents, Asia and Africa. It was a tiny land, 
and so far as natural resources went, hardly worth 
conquering at all. But strategically, it was of the 
very highest importance. Every great empire 
builder and every ambitious trading king, had to 
thunder across it on his way east or west. And 
every great empire builder, and every ambitious 
trading king, did thunder across it at one time or 
another. | 

Living there in peace was as impossible as picnick- 
ing in peace in the middle of a crowded highway. 


t 


Egypt was the first to take advantage of the civil 
war in the little land, and soon after the division 
both North and South had to agree to recognize 
the overlordship of the Egyptian empire. Then 
came the Aramean suzerainty. Next, Assyria, the 
ancient empire at the other end of the Fertile Cres- 
cent, began to grow restive after its sleep of a cen- 
tury. Slowly it began to stretch and feel its strength, 
reaching out again and again to make a half-hearted 
clutch at Palestine. And finally, after a hundred 
and fifty years of such clumsy attempts, she came 
hurtling down on the land in earnest. 


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THE HOUSE DIVIDED 67 


5 


Israel was the first to go under. The king of 
Assyria, tired of the constant rebelliousness of the 
Hebrews, marched across its boundaries and laid 
siege to Samaria, the capital of the Northern King- 
dom. The Israelites refused to surrender for three 
long and ghastly years. The Assyrian king died and 
his son succeeded him. But still the siege was con- 
tinued. And at last, in the year 722 B. c., Samaria 
fell and the kingdom of which it was the capital 
was crushed never to rise again. All the wealthy 
and the learned, twenty-seven thousand of the best 
spirits in the ten northern tribes, were carried off 
into captivity. They were distributed throughout 
Assyria, and there gradually their identity was lost 
as they became inextricably mixed with the people 
around them. 

To this day we still speak of them as the Lost 
Ten Tribes, as though those thousands marched 
off as one man and then lost themselves in the heart 
of some far romantic land. Many an explorer com- 
ing across some strange people in Central America 
or Greenland or Tibet, has rushed forth to declare 
that the Lost Ten Tribes have been found again. 

But no explorer ever really found them, and no 
explorer ever will. Those tribes did not wander 
off together to any distant land, but simply dwin- 
dled out of existence right where they were set 
down by the Assyrians. Some few of them may 
indeed have gone off to the far ends of the earth 
on trading expeditions, and thus founded the little 
colonies we hear of in Abyssinia and China. And 


68 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


many of them must have joined and become mingled 

with the other two tribes of Hebrews. But it is 

quite clear that most of the exiled Israelites simply 

merged with the races dwelling in Assyria and 

Medea, and there faded out of history’s picture. 
And so ended the Northern Kingdom. 


6 


The Southern Kingdom, Judah, was spared for 
a while. By diplomacy and intrigue, by submission 
and bribery, it managed to drag out some extra 
days of life. But hardly a generation after the fall 
of Israel, Judah’s territory had so shrunk that the 
Assyrians spoke of the kingdom as a mere “‘city.” 
Gone was all the glory of David, and in the dust 
was all the pomp of Solomon. Judah, like a dor- 
mouse in a cage of fighting lions, was trampled on 
no matter who else won or lost. Assyria went down 
to destruction, but immediately Egypt laid its paw 
on Palestine. When Egypt was overthrown, Baby- 
lon began clawing the little land. 

And then suddenly, in 597 B. c., Judah came to 
an end. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, angered 
by an attempt at rebellion on the part of Judah, 
came and laid siege to Jerusalem. After he had 
emptied its treasury, and despoiled its Temple, he 
wrecked the city utterly. All the better citizens, 
the men of influence and the soldiers and the crafts- 
men, were taken captive to Babylon. Only the 
ne’er-do-wells and the shiftless were left to take 
over the affairs of the city, a sorry lot of uneducated 
and incompetent varlets. 

For a while there was quiet in the land of Judah, 


THE HOUSE DIVIDED 69 


but as the years passed and passion for freedom 
began to go to their heads, even this riffraff tried 
to rebel again. Down hastened Nebuchadnezzar 
in another great fury, and once more the dread bat- 
tering-rams were to be heard thundering against the 
northern wall of Jerusalem. A whole year and a 
half the rams pounded away before a breach could 
be made—they were mighty walls around Jerusalem 
in those days—and then in poured the raging enemy. 
The wretched king of Judah was forced to look on 
while his sons were slaughtered in cold blood; and 
then his own eyes were gouged out. Seventy of the 
leaders were executed, and almost the entire pop- 
ulation of Jerusalem was taken captive to Babylon. 
And so ended the Kingdom of Judah. 


7 


Almost five centuries had passed from the time the 
Hebrew invaders of Canaan took unto themselves a 
king, five centuries of war and intrigue, of tyranny 
and corruption, of conquest and defeat. They were 
not at all unlike the centuries through which all 
the other little Oriental kingdoms had lived—except 
in one respect. The Philistines and Edomites, the 
Pheenicians and Moabites, had all of them experi- 
enced much the same run of life and met the same 
death. 

But when those other peoples died, they died for- 
ever; the Hebrews alone lived on after death. Those 
other nations, great and small, are no more than 
names to us now; but the sons of the ancient He- 
brews form to this day a mighty people on earth. 

There was a reason for this. 


4 
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THE HOUSE DIVIDED 71 


During all those five centuries in the history of 
the Hebrews, a spirit was sprouting and flourishing 
that was almost completely unknown to the peoples 
roundabout. That one thing made those five cen- 
turies in Palestine among the most extraordinary 
in all human history. Outwardly the Hebrews went 
the way of all the other nations, but inwardly they 
went a way which even to this day we cannot quite 
understand or explain. 

And of that strange inward way I shall now have 
to tell at some length. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE HEBREWS CONTINUE TO LIVE BECAUSE OF 
THE SPIRIT THE PROPHETS HAD BREATHED 
INTO THEM 


The one element in those five centuries of Hebrew 
kingship which really makes their history worth 
telling, is the presence of the neviim, the “‘prophets.”’ 

No one quite like the ancient Hebrew prophet 
had ever before appeared among men. He was a 
new type in human society, a strange creature whose 
coming marked a revolution in the history of all 
civilization. 

In very early times the ‘“‘prophet”’ was apt to be 
a somewhat half-crazed man, perhaps an epileptic, 
who because of his queer actions was believed by 
the people to be a wonder-worker. The primitive 
Hebrews used to go to him whenever they were in 
trouble, for they imagined they could learn from him 
the mind of the god they worshiped. He was fortune- 
teller, medicine-man, and priest all in one. He 
would be consulted when a tribe thought of going 
to battle, for he was supposed to be able to foretell 
who would win. When the boy Saul was sent to 
find his father’s asses, he went to the prophet-priest, 
Samuel, to learn where they had strayed. 

As we have already seen, in the time of Samuel 
whole bands or guilds of these neviim began to 
appear. They went up and down the land clad in 
rough goatskins, and danced madly while they 


NS Oe 


THE RISE OF THE PROPHETS 73 


shouted out the might of their god, Yahveh. They 
loathed the Baalim of the Canaanites, and their whole 
aim seems to have been to keep the Hebrews true to 
that covenant which their fathers had once made at 
the Holy Mountain in the Wilderness. The fact 
that the Hebrews did not become Canaanites and 
lose their identity very soon after they reéntered the 
Fertile Crescent, was due largely to these roving 
agitators. They were frenzied patriots who were 
constantly reminding the people that they belonged 
to Yahveh, not to Baal. 


2 


As time went on, however, these neviim began 
to change altogether in their character and func- 
tion. When Solomon built the temple and a 
horde of fussy, bustling priests began to minis- 
ter there, the true prophets took very little part 
in the services. So long as the Yahveh was wor- 
shiped in a tent in the field, or on a rough stone 
altar in the forest, the prophets were willing enough 
to perform the work of priests. But they were too 
wild and foot-loose a set of men to mess about for 
long within the four walls of what they might have 
described as a stuffy little ornamented temple. 
They liked to meet their god in the open, where the 
wind was sharp and all heaven was the roof above 
their heads. They did not take to the new-fangled 
ways which the Hebrews had learned from the city- 
dwelling people around them. They cried out 
constantly for a return to the stern, simple life of the 
desert nomad. Constantly, they clamored for a 
revival of the ‘‘old-time religion.” 


74 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
3 


They were a courageous lot, those neviim. They 
were not afraid even of the king. When David 
grew drunk with power and stole another man’s 
wife, the prophet Nathan went to the king and told 
him to his face he was an accursed criminal. 

It was a prophet, Ahijah, who stirred up the one 
attempt at revolution when Solomon was on the 
throne. 

And when Ahab, king of Israel, married an ambi- 
tious Phoenician princess named Jezebel, it was a 
prophet, Elijah, who alone kept her from ruining her 
husband’s race. Jezebel sought to make Israel 
another Phoenicia, a land where vile practices and 
child-burning formed part of the worship of Baal 
Melkarth, and where the king was an unrestrained 
despot. Again and again, Elijah, a wild man with 
uncut hair and only a sheep-pelt to cover his naked- 
ness, rushed out of the wilderness to decry her wicked- 
ness and that of the king. He was called the ‘‘troubler 
in Israel’”’—but it was desperately necessary trouble 
that he made. His whole career was one impas- 
sioned protest against the corruption, the luxury, 
and the vice which were engulfing the land. He 
championed the cause of justice against tyranny, 
of the common man against the king; and the spark 
of discontent he put into the people flared up a 
generation later in a terrible and bloody revolution. 


f 


It was probably the neviim, too, who set down in 
writing the first history of the Hebrew people, and 


THE RISE OF THE PROPHETS 75 


thus laid the foundation of that monument of litera- 
ture which we call the Bible. Some time in the 
ninth century B. c. a group of writers in Judah 
gathered together many of the old songs and tales 
current among the people, and tried to arrange them 
so that they would tell a connected story. The aim 
of these writers was to prove that Yahveh, and Yah- 
veh alone, had protected the Hebrews from the 
beginning, and that he would continue to protect 
them if they but kept his commandments. 

Fragments of that ancient history are to be found 
scattered through the first four books of the Bible, 
and scholars after much travail have succeeded in 
piecing them together. The resulting document re- 
veals most strikingly just what the ancient Hebrews 
thought of Yahveh: how he seemed to them a being 
who walked and talked with man, and who came — 
down to earth every now and again to see for him- 
self just what was going on here. After all, those 
ancient Hebrews were still a primitive people; 
even their prophets were primitive. And _ their 
ideas of a god could not but be primitive also. Yah- 
veh to them was a god of war, a fiercely jealous 
and tyrannical Lord of Hosts. Yet for all that, 
this document of theirs registers a real advance in 
human thinking. Yahveh is still a dread spirit 
who greatly hungers for sacrifices and burnt-offer- 
ings, but amazingly, he begins to show an interest in 
something else as well—in morality. He commands 
his worshipers not alone to bring him fatlings and 
first fruits, but also to be hospitable to the stranger, 
to be faithful to one’s human master, to respect the 
marriage relation. 


76 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Of course, this most ancient Hebrew document 
contains many half-savage doctrines. Because it 
was broken up and scattered here and there through- 
out the Pentateuch, it serves to lower the tone of 
much of the Old Testament. But when one re- 
members how far more horrible were the doctrines of 
the other peoples of the world in the ninth century 
B. C., one realizes that this ‘‘Yahvist”’ history is 
after all a most significant work. It marks a genuine 
effort to drag man out of the bog of savagery in 
which he had floundered for centuries. . . . 

It was only one of the first of such efforts in the 
life of the Hebrew people, and was quickly followed 
by a second. Another history was compiled a 
generation or two later, this time by the prophets of 
the north, of the Kingdom of Israel. And it differed 
in many striking ways from the earlier document 
drawn up in the south. Its description of Yahveh 
was less childlike, and its moral ideas were less 
crude. Its code of commandments was more elabo- 
rate and more humane.* Every seventh day was 
to be given to the servants and the beasts of burden 
as a holiday, and the crops every seventh year left 
for the poor to harvest. It even commanded that 
kindness be shown to one’s enemy! 

Of course, it is hardly credible that the thinking 
of the masses in Israel and Judah was mirrored in 
this second history. Or even in the first. Both 


* The law code belonging to the first, the “Yahvist,”’ history 
is to be found in Exodus xxxiv. That of the second, the 
“Flohist,”’ (called so because in it the deity is known by the 
name of El, or Elohim) is to be found in Exodus xx, 22, to 
Xxili, 19. 


THE RISE OF THE PROPHETS 77 


documents must have been esteemed wildly radical 
by the ordinary people of the day. And naturally 
so—for both documents were the work of those 
superb radicals, the neviim. 


5 


But not until the eighth century, with the coming 
of Amos, do we see the neviim at what is almost 
their highest. Now there is no longer any telling 
of tales in order to win over the people, nor any 
resort to tawdry miracles or fortune-telling in order 
to awe them. The prophet is now neither a magi- 
cian nor a medium, but simply a preacher who sees 
the evil that is abroad in the land, and dares to 
arise and denounce it openly in the name of god. 
His tremendous earnestness alone is relied on to 
win him a hearing. If he prophesies at all in his talk 
of the future, he refers usually to the zmmediate fu- 
ture. His keen insight into the life of his time tells 
him what must soon happen. If he ever ventures 
to speak of the distant future, he is evidently giving 
utterance to a hope, a glowing dream, rather than 
to a cold and reasoned conviction. 

Amos is one of the most dramatic figures in all 
this story of a most dramatic people. He was a simple 
sheep-herder and lumberjack from Judah who was 
driven by some quite unexplainable urge to go north 
into Israel and denounce it for its sins. His sermons 
form a little book in the Bible, and to this day they 
are among the eternal wonders of literature. For 
simplicity, for power, for beauty of word they are 
altogether amazing. How any humble laborer was 
ever able to conceive them, or ever made the resolve 


78 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


or mustered the courage to utter them, must ever 
remain to us a bewildering mystery. 

Israel just at that time was enjoying its last 
gay flare before the endless night of its destruction. 
The Arameans had been defeated, and the Assyrians 
were still only half awake. The land was flush 
with sudden prosperity, and evil was rampant 
everywhere. A few rich and powerful nobles 
and landowners were grinding the poor into the 
dust, thinking to atone for all their misdeeds by 
bringing fat offerings to the altars of Yahveh. At 
the high festivals these wealthy ones gathered in 
their temples amid great hilarity and drunkenness 
to rejoice in their good fortune. It seemed to them 
that Yahveh was pleased with them at last, for 
not in centuries had there been so much spoil in 
the land. They thought that they were living in 
‘‘God’s country,’ and that ill-fortune could not 
possibly touch them. 

And at one of those riotous festivals in the bediz- 
ened temple at Beth-El, while the rich Israelites 
were carousing and dancing around the altar, sud- 
denly a strange voice was heard rising above the 
din. It was the voice of an ill-clad, wild-eyed peas- 
ant who somehow had forced his way into the 
sanctuary and was now drowning out the festive 
songs with a piercing cry of lamentation. He was 
singing a funeral dirge! 


“Fallen is the virgin which is Israel, 
Nevermore shall she rise; 
Forsaken is she upon her land, 
There is none to raise her up.” 


THE RISE OF THE PROPHETS 79 


Thus did the stranger ery mournfully in the midst 
of the merriment. And then in a voice terrible to 
hear he began to denounce the drunken throng. 
Death was almost on them! All Israel was about 
to be destroyed! None: would escape, for Yahveh, 
the God of Justice, would mete out ruthless justice 
to the wayward people. Even as he had wiped out 
other nations for their sins, so also would he wipe 
out Israel. He would not be lenient simply because 
he had once chosen the Hebrews for his own. 
Rather he would punish them the more. Sacrifices 
by the thousand could not stay the judgment, 
neither would festive offerings by the myriad bribe 
the judge. 

“‘T hate, I despise your feasts; and I will take no 
delight in your sacred assemblies,” cried the ragged 
stranger in the name of Yahveh. ‘‘Even though 
you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain offerings, 
I will not accept them; neither will I regard the 
peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from 
me the noise of your songs; for I will not hearken 
to the melody of your viols. BUT LET JUSTICE ROLL 
DOWN AS THE WATERS, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS AS A 
MIGHTY STREAM!” 

So there was no escape, for in Israel there was 
corruption, not justice, and evil, not righteousness. 
The rich lolled on couches of ivory, smearing them- 
selves with precious perfumes and cosmetics, and 
drinking costly wines. They were lewd and low and 
rotten to the heart. They cheated and robbed and 
enslaved the poor. So ‘Prepare to meet thy God, 
O Israel!” the prophet cried to them with awful 
voice. A fearsome enemy would sweep down on 


80 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


the land, conquering and destroying, plundering 
and burning. The rich and the mighty of the nation 
would all be taken captive to a far place, and the 
women would there be put to shame and the children 
would be cut down. ‘‘Woe, for the end of my 
people, Israel, is at hand. I can no longer forgive.” 

Thus did Amos, that simple sheep-herder and 
lumberjack from Judah, dare to address the drunken 
lords and ladies in their temple at Beth-El. 

But they would not harken. 

And forty years later, Assyria came ravaging, 
through the land, and Israel was utterly destroyed! 
The words of Amos had come true. . . 


CHAPTER IX 
THE IDEALS OF THE PROPHETS 


Amos was but one of that grand array of prophets 
whose life-work imparts the richest color to the 
history of the Hebrew people. Sixteen whom we 
know by name have their words preserved in our 
Bible, but there must have been scores of others 
whose utterances were written down and lost, or 
were never written down at all. Were there but 
space, I would write at length of all those whom we 
know, for even the least of them played a dramatic 
part in our story. Altogether there were forty 
kings who sat on the thrones of Israel and Judah, 
yet hardly even the mightiest of them so deserves 
to be remembered as does the humblest of these 
heroic preachers. 

Every nation of old had its kings and priests— 
but perhaps only the Hebrews had such prophets. 


2 


Some twenty-five years after the coming of Amos, 
there suddenly appeared in Israel another prophet, 
one named Hosea. He was a gentle, cultured man, 
however, and the burthen of his preaching was far 
less bitter to the taste than that of Amos. He too 
could see the certainty of Israel’s doom if it per- 
sisted in its evil course; but with it he could see the 
possibility of repentance and forgiveness. For to 


82 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


this prophet Yahveh was not only a God of Justice, 
but also a God of Love! .. . 

And by the utterance of that thought, Hosea 
blazed the path for all high religious thinking from 
then on. Yahveh, who had been a cruel, capricious 
despot to the bedraggled wanderer in the wilderness, 
and a jealous little tribal deity to Elijah, and al- 
together a stern, ruthless, avenging Judge to Amos— 
this Yahveh became wondrously changed into a Lov- 
ing Father and a God of Mercy to Hosea! 

The span from the Yahveh of the nomad to the 
Yahveh of Hosea is the whole distance between 
barbarism and civilization. .. . 

Very probably the people who heard Hosea, 
laughed at him. It is easy to picture him as a mild 
little man who had a way of mumbling to himself. 
Ordinary people probably called him queer, and a 
bit ‘‘cracked.” They could not understand what 
he meant. Even eight hundred years later, when 
another Jewish prophet gave utterance to just such 
thoughts as did Hosea, the people still could not 
understand. And that other prophet they crucified. 

Even to-day, twenty-six hundred years later, 
there are still exceeding few who understand. 


3 


Hosea was the last to preach in Israel, for in a 
little while that kingdom was destroyed. The next 
prophet, Isaiah, belonged to Judah—or perhaps it 
might be truer to say that Judah belonged to him. 
For he it was who saved his land from being engulfed 
soon after the disappearance of Israel. It was his 


MORE ABOUT THE PROPHETS 83 


statesmanship, his hawk-like watch over Judah’s 
movements as it scurried about between the feet 
of the lions, that made all the rest of this story pos- 
sible. For had Judah gone down with Israel, then not 
ten but all twelve tribes would have perished. And 
our story would have ended with this paragraph. 

Isaiah’s sermons constitute most of the first 
thirty-nine chapters of the book that goes by his 
name; and for splendor of language they are perhaps 
unsurpassed in all the rest of the Bible. But to-day 
they somehow have less meaning for us than, for 
instance, the sermons of Hosea. 

The trouble is that Isaiah’s great interest in the 
political life of his little native country, his tremen- 
dous excitement about its material future, rather 
shortened his vision. He was perhaps too narrowly 
a patriot. Yahveh to him was still the god who 
ruled solely for the benefit of the Hebrews. 


4 


And Isaiah was an aristocrat. His greatest in- 
fluence lay with kings and princes. He preached 
brilliantly, learnedly—but it is hardly possible 
that the plain people ever understood much of what 
‘he said. Not he, but another prophet, Micah, made 
the simple folk understand. Micah was one of them 
himself, for he came from a tiny village on the 
border of Judah. In that, and in the bitterness 
of his preaching, he was very like Amos, the sheep- 
herder. He was the voice of the outraged masses, 
the flaming protestant against the wickedness of 
the rich and the hypocrisy of the priestly. 


84 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


There was little originality in what Micah said, 
but there was genius in the way he said it. His 
ideas he got from all the prophets before him, and es- 
pecially from Isaiah whom he may have known well; 
but he clothed those ideas with a simplicity and a 
charm that were altogether his own. For instance, 
see with what perfection he sums up the teachings 
of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, in the one verse: 


“Tt hath been shown thee, O man, what is good, 
And what Yahveh doth demand of thee: 
Only to do justice and to love mercy 
And to walk humbly with thy God.” 


Micah put things so that they could not but be 
understood and remembered. To this day men 
read with awe and wonder the words of that lowly 
champion of the oppressed in ancient Judah. 

And with his searing eloquence Micah touched 
off a mighty train of reform. ‘The temple in Jeru- 
salem, which had long been given over to the filth 
of idolatry, was cleansed and rededicated to the 
service of Yahveh alone. <A great Passover feast 
was held in the capital, and after it the people in 
great enthusiasm went away and tore down all the 
brazen images and stone pillars and other heathen 
symbols which had been worshiped on the hills 
and in the forests. All the idolatry that the Canaan- 
ite farmers and the Egyptian and Phcenician prin- 
cesses had taught the Hebrews, was of a sudden 
swept out of the land. At last the “‘old-time re- 
ligion’’ was supreme once more. 

And in large part all this was the work of Micah, 
a peasant evangelist. 


i ti 


MORE ABOUT THE PROPHETS 85 
5 


But the results of the sudden reform were soon 
undone again. Fifteen years passed, and then all 
the old idolatry came back. Indeed, things then 
became worse than ever. The religion of the Assyr- 
lans invaded Judah, and with it came all manner of 
lewd and coarse practices. Vile things were done 
to please the Phoenician god, Thammuz, and babies 
were sacrificed to the bloody god, Moloch. And all 
the reformers and the prophets of Yahveh were 
slaughtered or driven to cover. 

From being almost too good the people suddenly 
relapsed into being unspeakably bad. 

Perhaps that is the only way in which progress 
can be achieved: by leaps and falls. Perhaps man 
is a little like an infant in its struggle to climb a 
flight of steps. With desperate effort it manages 
to crawl up three steps; and then helplessly it slides 
back two. It tries again, climbing three more, and 
again falls down two. And so it goes on, straining 
and clambering, lunging forward and _ slipping 
back—but forever going on. 


6 


For almost half a century this spirit of heathenism 
was rampant in Judah, and then another wave of 
reform swept the country. Of course, this second 
reform did not come of itself, and without prepara- 
tion. Indeed, during all the years of reaction the 
prophets were secretly girding their loins for the fresh 
assault on idolatry. Hidden high in the hills or far 
in the forests, they were intensely active. If they 


86 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


could not preach, at least they could write. They 
gathered and edited the sermons of Amos, Hosea, 
Isaiah, and Micah, preserving them on long parch- 
ment scrolls. They even dared to begin a whole 
new code of laws for Judah. It was a code based in 
part on their prophetic ideals, and they dreamed of 
putting it into effect so soon as they were once again 
in power. The earlier collections of laws had all 
been fragmentary, and had therefore been of little 
value. Now for the first time was there drawn up a 
code comprehensive enough to guide every act in 
the daily life of the Hebrews. 

So did the prophets labor in secret, patiently pre- 
paring for the coming of the day of their deliverance. 


CHAPTER X 


MORE ABOUT THE IDEALS OF THE PROPHETS, 
AND THE STORY OF HOW THE PRIESTS TRIED 
TO MAKE THEM PRACTICABLE 


At last the great day of the prophets dawned. 
A new king, Josiah, sat on the throne, a young man 
who from childhood had probably been under the 
influence of secret friends of the reformers. The 
prophets cautiously emerged from their hiding 
places and began to preach once more in the open. 
Zephaniah, a cousin of the king, and Jeremiah, 
a young man of an aristocratic family, were especially 
prominent as agitators for a new wave of reform, 
And strange to tell, the priests in Jerusalem were 
also active in the movement. 

A terrifying chapter in Oriental history had just 
been written, and it served to hasten the coming of 
the reform. Of a sudden out of the dark forests of 
Europe, hordes of ravenous Scythians had poured 
forth. Across the Caucasus Mountains, through 
Asia Minor, down along the borders of Palestine 
the savages had plunged, pillaging right and left, 
and leaving a wide trail of blood and ashes behind 
them. They very nearly got Jerusalem in their 
claws, and even though the city escaped, the in- 
habitants were left weak with terror. It had been 
a frightfully narrow escape for them. 

That gave the prophets their great chance. Up 


88 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


and down the land they went, calling on the people 
to heed that dread warning. The awful Day of 
Yahveh’s Judgment was at hand—‘‘the day of 
wrath, of terror and distress, of wasting and deso- 
lation, of darkness and gloom.” And there was but 
one means of escape, declared the prophets: re- 
pentance! ‘‘Return, O backsliding children!’ they 
cried to the trembling people. ‘‘ Return unto Yahveh 
or be destroyed!” 


2 


And the people did return. Led by the terrified 
young king, they forswore utterly their past wicked- 
ness. A mysterious code of laws was discovered in 
the temple at Jerusalem, a scroll supposed to have 
been written by Moses himself. In it was set down 
in harrowing detail the curses that would fall upon 
Judah if Yahveh’s law was not scrupulously obeyed. 
And when Josiah, the young king, heard those curses, 
he rent his clothes in fear. Hastily he summoned 
all the free men of Judah to the temple in Jerusalem, 
and there he arose and read to them the whole book. 
And there and then the people vowed to make that 
new-found book the law of the land. 

That book is still existent to-day, though in a 
greatly enlarged and altered form. Scholars say 
it is part of what we now call Deuteronomy, the 
fifth book in the Bible. Almost certainly it was 
none other than that self-same code of laws which 
the prophets had been secretly preparing all through 
the preceding half-century of heathenism. Parts of 
it—especially the repeated commands to worship 
Yahveh and Yahveh alone, and the laws favoring 


a ae 


PROPHETS AND PRIESTS 89 


the unfortunate and the downtrodden—are un- 
mistakably in the spirit of the zealous nevium. 

But in that book there is also a spirit that is far 
more priestly than prophetic. A great to-do is made 
over the edict that in no sanctuary save the temple 
built by Solomon may Yahveh be worshiped. That 
meant that all the little village shrines of Yahveh 
must be destroyed. As one result, all their priests 
had to go to Jerusalem to find work as helpers in 
the Temple there. (For the first time now we must 
write the word with a capital T.) 

Undoubtedly that was in one respect a wise ruling, 
for those village shrines had always been the start- 
ing points of corruption in the religious practices 
of the land. The village priests were an ignorant 
and superstitious lot, and seldom did they prevent 
their altars from becoming the centers of the crudest 
idolatry. With all religious observance centralized 
in the Temple at Jerusalem, the likelihood was 
greater that it could be guarded and kept uncor- 
rupted. 


3 


But there was another side to this reform and one 
not so promising. The confinement of religious 
observance to one particular spot was destined to 
cause great distress and concern in the years to 
come. Perhaps the prophets foresaw this, but 
allowed the law to go into the code in order to win 
the support of the powerful Jerusalem priests. The 
whole code, indeed, appears a compromise between 
the high dreams of the prophets and the earthly de- 
sires of the priests. And as is usually the case with 


90 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


compromises, the earthly desires gained most by the 
deal. This code of laws made the religion of Yahveh 
a fixed and very rigid thing, a business of bringing 
proper sacrifices in a proper fashion at proper times, 
and of handing them over to very proper—but 
often low and greedy—priests. It took God, who 
is a wondrous yearning in the heart of all man- 
kind, a hunger as wide as the world and a joy as high 
as the heavens, and tried to box Him up in a tiny 
little house of stone and mortar. It took that mighty 
spirit called Religion and tried to lock it in a stuffy 
feeble thing called the Church. 


4 


It was in the year 621 B. c. that the code of laws 
was ‘‘discovered”’ by one of the priests and shown 
to the king. No doubt the prophets greatly re- 
joiced over the acceptance of the code by all in 
the land, and thought perhaps their work of saving 
the soul of Judah was at last accomplished. But 
that code did not save the soul of the nation. Per- 
haps it helped save the body for a while—but only 
the hope preached by the greater prophets saved its 
soul. A code of laws is feared and obeyed; but a 
hope is loved and clung to. The Temple and its 
sacrifices were soon no more; but the hope voiced 
by the prophets that some day the oppressed and 
the lowly would find utter rest and peace—that hope 
lived on forever. 

At least one of the prophets of the period, Jere- 
miah, shows that he felt this to be the case, for in 
his sermons there flames a spirit utterly opposed to 
the priestliness of the law book. Indeed, the whole 


PROPHETS AND PRIESTS 91 


burthen of his preaching was that Yahveh would 
Himself destroy the Temple, even though it had been 
built to His glory. For Jeremiah’s insight told him 
that Yahveh did not demand this elaborate and messy 
business of sacrifice; He demanded only faith in the 
inward heart. 

Jeremiah had the courage to utter that thought 
right inside the Temple at a time when the ideas 
set down in the new-found code were accepted by 
all the people. There were violent scenes in the 
Temple Courts, and a great clamor arose for the 
death of the daring prophet. Only with great 
difficulty did he manage to escape. 

But soon he returned again, once more to utter 
what he felt was the word of the Lord. He was 
put into stocks, beaten, flung into prison, lowered 
into a miry pit and left to die—but still would he 
not halt in his high work of godly mischief. 

There is something tremendously attractive about 
this man Jeremiah who forever spoke what was in 
his mind, no matter whom he offended. A scroll 
of his sermons was torn to pieces and burnt by King 
Jehoiakim; and the prophet himself was hounded 
from place to place. Nevertheless he did not falter. 
He lived through the most trying years in the history 
of Judah, years which saw it thrice invaded and 
despoiled by Babylonian armies. And all through 
that period he stood out for his own ideals against 
every one of the hysterical follies committed by 
the mob. When all the people were madly clamor- 
ing for war, he stood out alone for peace. There was 
in him nothing of that narrow patriotism that carried 
away many of the other prophets of his time. His 


92 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


God was no possession of one little tribe, and did 
not dwell in one little shrine. He was Master of 
all the nations, Chieftain of all the tribes; and the 
roof of His temple was the sky that covered all 
the earth. 

And when Jeremiah voiced these ideas, another 
revolution occurred in human thinking. Yahveh 
who once had been merely the equal of many other 
gods, and then merely one stronger than those other 
gods, became with Jeremiah the One and Only 
Master of all the Universe. He was no longer Yah- 
veh at all—! 

He was God. 


5 


But little joy ever came to him who wrought the 
revolution. When Jerusalem was destroyed by the 
Babylonian host, in 586 B. c. Jeremiah was left 
behind to keep peace among the rabble that had 
not been deported. But the mad desire to break 
away from the Babylonian Empire could not be 
allayed. A band of fanatics assassinated the noble 
Gedaliah who had been made ruler of the land, 
and then in terror lest the Babylonians march 
down again and avenge the murder, those fanatics 
arose and fled into Egypt. And when they fled they 
dragged Jeremiah with them. 

But even in far-off Egypt the prophet would not 
be silent. Bitter quarreling arose among the refugees, 
and Jeremiah began once more to speak his mind. 
But this time he did not escape, for according to 
an old tradition an infuriated mob closed in on him 
and stoned him to death. 


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94 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


That was the end of Jeremiah, a true Man of God. 
In his own day he was despised and loathed as the 
betrayer of his people; but we who now look back on 
his deeds and re-read his words know him to have 
been their only savior. 


CHAPTER XI 


HOW YAHVISM DIED AND JUDAISM WAS BORN 
IN THE BABYLONIAN EXILE 


Most of the ten tribes of Israel deported by the 
Assyrians, probably merged in the course of time 
with the strange races in the lands of their exile; 
and their existence as a people ended forever. 

One hundred and fifty years later, the two little 
tribes of Judah were deported by the Babylonians, 
but they, far from merging, became even more dis- 
tinctively a separate people—and lived. And that 
seems to have been altogether due to the prophets 
of Judah who had preached and been persecuted 
for their preaching. In those one hundred and fifty 
years preceding the exile, they had managed to 
breathe into the tiny people of Judah a spirit which, 
unlike high walls and mighty fortresses, could never 
be burnt down or destroyed. 

It is important to realize just how tiny a people 
this was, for then the miracle of its survival be- 
comes even more impressive. After the catastrophe 
that occurred in 586, the tribes of Judah were torn 
apart into three main fragments. First, there was 
a dispirited remnant left behind in Palestine—poor, 
benighted peasants who were harried constantly by 
wild tribes from the desert. Then there were the 
fugitives who had congregated in scattered settle- 
ments in Egypt. Finally there was the community 


96 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


of exiles in Babylon. But all three groups together 
probably would not have sufficed to people an ordi- 
nary fair-sized American city lke Paterson, New 
Jersey, or Des Moines, Iowa. Their total number 
could not have been much more than a hundred 
and twenty-five or a hundred and fifty thousand— 
about half as many Jews as there are to-day in 
Chicago alone. 

And yet that little nation, dispersed over all the 
Orient, tossed about in the welter of empires like 
a cork in a furious whirlpool, managed to live on 
and come out triumphant! | 


2 


The story of that survival is largely the story of 
the handful that was dragged off to Babylon. And 
not even of all that handful, for many of them de- 
serted and took to the gods of the conquerors. Baby- 
lon was a mighty city whose outer wall was fifty 
miles in length, and so thick that four chariots 
could drive on it abreast. In it were mighty temples 
adorned with jewels and precious metals, and vast 
palaces brilliant with colored bricks and tiles. High 
almost to the heavens reached the towers and gar- 
den terraces; broad to the very horizon stretched 
its parks and meadow lands. 

To the bedraggled Judeans, destitute wanderers 
from a backward little hill-country, the sight of all 
the magnificence of Babylonia must have been 
overwhelming. What was Judah compared with 
this? And who was the defeated Yahveh compared 
with the gods of such a land? How could one still 
believe Jerusalem the Holy City, or still worship 


THE EXILE IN BABYLONIA 97 


Yahveh as the mightiest of the gods? No, Babylon 
—that was the true Zion! And Bel, the sun god— 
he was the real Lord of Hosts! 

So must many of the exiles have decided in their 
despair. And as swiftly as that decision spread, 
so swiftly did their old Yahveh die, and their old 
religion perish. 

But in that same hour a new Yahveh—the One 
and Only Master of the Universe whom Jeremiah had 
championed—He came into His own. Yahvism, the 
old religion of the wild desert nomads who once 
had taken Canaan and then had been driven out 
again—that was no more. But now Judaism, a new 
religion, was born. 

For not all the exiles were swept off their feet 
by the grandeur of Babylon and its gods. The 
majority went the way of all majorities, but an 
heroic minority stood its ground and refused to be 
stampeded. That minority turned now not to the 
living priests of Babylonia, but to the dead prophets 
of Judah. 

And out of the teachings of those dead prophets 
the minority fashioned the newer and nobler faith. 


3 


There was prosperity and comfort for most of 
the exiles in their new home. They were untroubled 
by their conquerors, and allowed to manage their 
private affairs as they pleased. Opportunities 
aplenty were given to those who desired wealth and 
station, for King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia— 
who not undeservedly was called the Great—put 
no cbstacle in their way. All he had wanted to do 


98 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


was to destroy the Kingdom of Judah, for its exist- 
ence had made his hold on Palestine a highly un- 
certain one. And he needed Palestine desperately, 
for it was the bridge between his empire and the rest 
of the world. Now, however, that he held it se- 
curely, he wished the defeated and exiled men of 
Judah all the good in the world. And rapidly many 
of them began to get it. ... 

But always there were the few who could not be 
at ease in the strange land. Bread for their bellies 
meant nothing to them; they wanted food for their 
souls. So they sat by the waters of Babylon and 
wept. (They were indeed a strange people!) They 
hated the new land for it was not their own. 
It was “unclean” to them. And longingly they 
thought only of the little blue hills whence they had 
been taken. In their minds those hills became 
ineffably lovely, and the men who once trod them 
seemed immeasurably great. Like beggars around 
a fire, the exiles warmed their hearts with tales of 
past glories, with glowing stories which they elab- 
orated about Moses, and David, and Solomon. 

And for fear those stories—which to them seemed 
utterly true—might be forgotten in this foreign 
land, these homeless souls wrote them down on 
parchment scrolls. The two primitive histories 
written three hundred years earlier, the ‘‘ Yahvist”’ 
and ‘‘Elohist’”’ codes, were out of date. A crop of 
new legends had sprung up, and new interpretations 
of the old legends, and these were all set down in 
writing during the exile in Babylonia. All the 
stories in existence about their ancestors were writ- 
ten on scrolls by Hebrew scribes. They patched 


THE EXILE IN BABYLONIA 99 


together the ancient traditions that had come down 
to them on old worn scraps of parchment or by 
word of mouth. And of them they made a new 
history. 

That new history simply had to be written not 
only for its own sake but also to keep the weak 
among the exiles from drifting utterly away. Some 
reason had to be given why Yahveh’s people had 
been crushed; and the only good reason was the old 
prophetic one that the people had been crushed 
because of their sins. Yahveh had not been de- 
feated when Israel and Judah were destroyed. Of 
course not! On the contrary, it was Yahveh Him- 
self who had brought about the destruction of His 
people to punish them for their idolatrous ways! 
Yahveh could not have been vanquished by other 
gods, for there were no other gods to vanquish Him. 
He alone was Lord of Heaven and all the Earth! 
He alone was God! 

And it was to establish this belief that the unhappy 
souls in exile wrote the new history. 


1 


But the history was not the only work of the 
‘“‘seribes’”’ among the exiles. They not only gath- 
ered together all the memories of their past; they 
also began to prepare for the future. Never for a 
moment would they admit they had reached the 
end of their story. No, their story was but begin- 
ning, they believed; for in a little while God would 
of course take pity on them once more and restore 
them to their own land. And then unheard-of 
glories would be theirs, they told themselves. No 


100 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


more would there be wicked kings to bring idolatrous 
princesses into the land, for God’s ‘‘ Anointed One”’ 
would Himself then be King. The Temple would 
be rebuilt and unnumbered priests would minister 
at its altars. In that day, joy and peace would 
reign throughout the land, and all would be well 
with God’s children on earth forever! 

It is curious to see how the dreams of the prophets 
and the hard sense of the priests are commingled 
in the air castles those exiles built. Perhaps it was 
because one of the leaders among the exiles was a 
prophet who happened to be the son of a priest. 
His name was Ezekiel, and like every other ancient 
prophet, exalted moments came to him when he 
seemed face to face with God. He had strange 
visions and afterward in frenzied words he told the 
people what he had seen. Like every other ancient 
prophet, he was what we call a mystic. 

But with all his visions and almost insane enthu- 
siasm, he was also a shrewd thinker. He knew the 
importance of organization, and many of the laws 
that were already being prepared for the future, 
were directly inspired by him. And those laws were 
altogether the laws of a priest. 

It is not easy for us to feel any fondness for 
priests or priestly ways. Much easier is it to favor 
the prophets, who were in those days as leaven in 
the bread of life. But the fact is clear that leaven 
without grist would have made sorry bread indeed— 
and grist then was the gift of the priest. He was the 
organizer and the preserver; he was the man who 
saw to things and ran them. That is why Ezekiel 
must be counted one of the most important figures 


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OE 


THE EXILE IN BABYLONIA 101 


in this whole long story. His influence on the future 
of his people proved tremendous. 

For the children of those exiles did not outlive 
Ezekiel’s priestly ideas for at least four hundred 
years. Indeed, many have not outlived them to 
this day. 


5 


But long before those ideas could be put into 
effect, Ezekiel died and was buried. Then for a 
generation no prophet arose to take the vacant 
place in the little community. Many of the exiles 
grew rich and powerful at the court of Babylon, 
and forgot altogether the humble land whence they 
had come. And the rest plodded along in aching 
homesickness. They could not sacrifice to God, 
for sacrifice in Babylon would have been a violation 
of the Deuteronomic Code of Laws revealed to them 
fifty years before. Jerusalem was still considered 
the only proper place for sacrifice. 

The best they could do was to devote one day of 
the week, the Sabbath, to undivided thought of their 
God. Perhaps they prayed and fasted on that day 
in little synagogues (the word really means ‘‘meet- 
ing-houses’”’), standing always with their faces turned 
yearningly toward Jerusalem. And piteously they 
begged there for the coming of the day of their re- 
demption. 


6 


And at last that day seemed about to dawn. A 
new empire was arising in the East, the empire of 
Cyrus, a mighty Persian conqueror. Babylonia 


102 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


seemed certain to fall, for King Nebuchadnezzar 
was long dead and a weakling sat on the throne. 
Feverish whispering went on in the little settlement 
of the exiles, and then loud and heroic agitation. 
A great prophet arose, a man whose name we do 
not even know, but whose wondrous orations form 
the latter part of the Book of Isaiah. (That is why 
modern scholars usually speak of him as Deutero- 
Isaiah, which means the Second Isaiah.) In the 
mind of this Great Unknown, it seemed evident 
that Cyrus was the ‘‘Anointed of God,” a con- 
queror divinely chosen to crush Babylonia and set 
the Judeans free. 

So this herald went about in the market places 
and bazaars of the homesick exiles and cried, ‘‘Be 
comforted, ye people, be comforted!’ The great 
day of deliverance was at hand, he assured them. 
Judah was about to be restored once more. But 
not as a pampered nation, sipping sweet favors from 
the fountain of God’s grace. The Chosen People of 
God had a harder life than that in store for them. 
They were to be a light unto the heathen, suffering 
servants whose duty it was to bring the knowledge of 
God to all the nations of the earth! ... 

Perhaps our psychologists would call that idea 
a “‘compensation for an inferiority complex.’ The 
people among whom the Hebrews lived, talked con- 
stantly of their world conquests; and though the 
Hebrews themselves were only a handful of humil- 
iated outcasts, they too wanted to talk in that way. 
They too wanted to feel the pride and self-respect 
felt by conquerors. But they knew only too well 
how feeble was their military strength, so they had 


She ly g 


THE EXILE IN BABYLONIA 103 


to think up some new way of conquering. And that 
new way was of course the way of the spirit. The 
other nations might have chariots and battering 
rams, but they, the Hebrews—so they now told 
themselves—alone had Right. 

Just what Right was, they hardly stopped to de- 
fine—except perhaps that it meant the favor of the 
God who commanded fair play to equals and mercy 
to the weak. But whatever it was, they believed, 
that by the grace of the God of Heaven and Earth, 
they had it—and with it they believed they would 
conquer. With it Babylonia would be humbled 
and they themselves would be released. And with 
it some day they would be triumphant in all the 
earth: their spirit, their. ideals, their God, would 
reign supreme. Jerusalem would become the center 
of the world, and the Temple would become a house 
of prayer for all the nations. They, the Jews, who 
were now scattered and broken, who were being 
spat upon and laughed at, they in the end would be 
the mightest conquerors of all! 

And in 588 B. c. Cyrus of Persia captured Babylon 
and set the exiles free. They were free now to con- 
quer the world—with Right. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE TRIALS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS AFTER THE 
RETURN FROM BABYLONIA 


The glorious conquest began most ingloriously. 
Of all the exiles in Babylon only a very few took 
advantage of Cyrus’s decree. The rest found it too 
hard to tear themselves away from the shops and 
homes they had established in the ‘‘unclean’’ land, 
and remained behind. Perhaps some of them even 
resented the decree, considering it a reflection on 
their Babylonian citizenship. They refused to think 
of themselves any more as Judeans; their boast was 
that they were ‘‘one hundred per cent’”’ Babylonians. 
Even most of those who still longed for the home- 
land, those who admitted freely that they felt them- 
selves spiritual strangers in Babylonia—even they did 
not stir. Instead they gave money—and of course 
much free moral encouragement—to the few daring 
souls who did make ready to go back. 

They were daring souls indeed. To get back to 
the old homeland they had to journey three months 
across the desert. And when they got back, only 
shambles greeted their gaze. Disappointments and 
hardships followed on each other’s heels from the 
very start. Jerusalem was a heap of ruins, and the 
fields roundabout were choked with wild growths 
and weeds. Houses had to be put up and cisterns 
dug; the fields had to be cleared and tilled. 


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106 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


There was no time to dream great dreams or build 
glittering castles in the air. A rough stone altar was 
‘set up on Mount Moriah—and that was all. They 
who had fondly hoped to build a house of prayer for 
all the peoples on earth, were too busy trying to keep 
alive to make a house of prayer even for themselves. 

Seventeen years they struggled along in that 
fashion, and then almost all the zeal and idealism 
they had brought with them from Babylonia seeped 
out of their wearied souls. They were discouraged 
and miserable. Perhaps they cursed the day they 
had ever left the prosperous lands of their exile. 


2 


And then once more the prophets reappeared. One 
was an aged man named Haggai, who had played 
in the streets of the old Jerusalem in his childhood. 
He preached in simple homely words, and with a 
fervor that recalls the preaching of Micah. The 
other was a young man named Zachariah who had 
been born in Babylonia and who cast his prophecies 
in a new and rather artificial pattern. But though 
so different in character and style, these two men 
were altogether at one in their thought. A bitter 
famine was sweeping across the land, and to both 
Haggai and Zachariah it seemed that it had been 
sent as a divine punishment. They believed it had 
come because the people had neglected God’s Temple. 
For themselves the people had provided stout houses, 
but for God they had built naught save a rude altar. 

(It is interesting to note how marked is the 
priestly spirit of the Deuteronomie Code and Ezekiel 
in the complaints of Haggai and Zachariah. A 


HOME AGAIN 107 


hundred years earlier, living prophets would have 
said that God’s anger had been aroused because the 
people had not dealt justly or lived cleanly. But now 
the great crime was only that they had not built a 
sanctuary and sacrificed properly. Priestliness had 
become an all-important thing in the minds even 
of the prophets.) 

Through all the streets of Jerusalem went those 
two men, Haggai and Zachariah, with their bitter 
complaints. They beseeched and cursed, they 
pleaded and reviled, until at last they drove the 
people into a frenzy of fear and agitation. Every 
imaginable joy and glory was promised them if only 
they rebuilt the Temple. The Jewish Messiah, 
the ‘‘Anointed of God,”. would surely be sent to 
rule over them, and all the nations of the earth would 
come to pay homage in Jerusalem. The dream of 
the Unknown Prophet of the Exile would immediately 
be realized—if only the Holy of Holies was once more 
erected. 


3 


So in a mad fever of anxiety the settlers now 
began work on the long-ruined sanctuary. The unde- 
ported Hebrew peasants who had stayed on in the 
land, offered to share in the labor; but they were 
spurned. The return exiles looked down on them as 
an inferior lot. Those peasants, especially in the 
north, in what once was the realm of Israel, had 
intermarried with the heathens who had been settled 
there by the Assyrians two hundred years before; 
and they had become ignorant and debased. Even 
those who had been left behind in the south, in Judah, 


108 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


had intermarried and lost caste. The folk just re- 
turned from Babylonia acted very much like country 
folk who after many years in the big city, return to 
the village of their birth and snub the neighbors 
among whom they were reared. 

Alone, therefore, the returned exiles labored at 
the rebuilding of the sanctuary, and with such tre- 
mendous earnestness that in less than five years 
their work was done. In size the new Temple was 
much like that of Solomon; but of course it lacked 
all decoration and ornament. The old, old men, 
who still hazily remembered the first Temple, wept 
with disappointment when they set eyes on the 
second. It was so plain, so crude! 

But still it was a Temple. Perhaps it had less 
gold on its walls, fewer pillars in its courts, than 
the first; but nevertheless it was a House of God. 
And now that it was builded, the people sat back 
in happy exhaustion and waited. Anxiously they 
waited for the grand reward the prophets had prom- 
ised them. Even those in far Babylonia caught 
the fever of hope, and in haste they sent a heavy 
golden crown to Jerusalem for the coronation of 
the Messiah. It seemed but a matter of days now 
before the whole world would be turned topsy- 
turvy. Cyrus had died, and his empire seemed about 
to crumble to pieces because of the wrangling among 
his successors. Anarchy reigned throughout the 
Orient. It seemed to them that to-morrow—the next 
day at the very latest—the triumph of Right (and 
Judah) would surely be realized. In a moment all 
the kings in the world would be swept away, and 
God’s ‘‘Anointed One” alone would reign at last. 


HOME AGAIN 109 


Of course, those poor Jews, worn out after their 
labors, were rather like the Jacobins after the first 
flare of the French Revolution, and the Bolsheviki 
after they first rode into power in Russia. They 
expected all the world to accept their new ideas 
immediately. 


4 


But the days passed—many days. Even years. 
And nothing happened. A new conqueror arose 
in Persia, a mighty man named Darius, who quickly 
set the empire in order once more. The world revo- 
lution which was to overturn all earthly kings and 
make the Messiah alone supreme—that did not occur. 

And then the hearts of the exhausted Jews in Jeru- 
salem turned to gall. They lost all faith in God and 
His prophets. God had fooled them, they thought. 
His prophets had promised all manner of glories if 
only His Temple were rebuilt—and He had not 
kept His word. His prophets were all liars, and 
God, therefore, was a fraud! The Messiah would 
never come! Never! 

So did those Jews grieve bitterly as they struggled 
along in their wretched little land. Fifty years of 
neglect had made the place a wilderness, and now 
recurrent drought and famine made its redemption 
unspeakably difficult. Enemies from every side came 
raiding and plundering—Edomites from the south, 
Philistines from the west, and worst of all, those 
half-breed Israelite peasants, the Samaritans, from 
the north. (They were called Samaritans because 
their chief city was the old Israelite capital, Samaria.) 
The whole land of Judah was no larger than a little 


110 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


county, but twenty miles from end to end! And 
hatred and disgust filled the souls of its dejected 
inhabitants. 


5 


Only a tiny minority—there has always been that 
minority among the Wandering People—still clung 
to God and His promise. They were called the 
‘“‘Pious,”’ and they refused to give up hope. While 
the rest went astray, intermarrying with the heathens 
around them, and breaking all the other laws that 
had been given them, those pious ones kept the 
faith. Even the priests became corrupt, sacrificing 
unclean things on the altars of God. Cruelty and 
injustice and vice were rampant throughout the 
little land. And only a very few of the people, 
the ‘‘Pious,”’ dared to protest. 

The chief protestant was a prophet whom we 
know as Malachi, and though priestly ideas had 
taken fast hold on him, there was still much of the 
old prophetic spirit ablaze in his preachment. 

But in vain did he raise his voice, for the day had 
almost passed when a prophet could command the 
respect of the mob. The Word of God had lost its 
power in Judah and only the word of some earthly 
authority could carry any weight in the land now. 

And just in time that word came. 


Pia ae oe 


CHAPTER XIII 
THE PRIESTS COME INTO POWER 


The word of authority came from Babylonia, 
and it was brought by a high official in the Persian 
court, a Jew named Nehemiah. Learning of the 
desperate plight of his brethren in Judah, this 
Nehemiah asked the king of Persia for permission 
to go back as governor of his people’s homeland. 
The permission was quickly granted, for the king— 
like Cyrus long before him—well knew how impor- 
tant it was that the bridge called Palestine be held 
by a people who bore him good will. 

So, armed with all the authority of the great 
Persian emperor, Nehemiah started out on the three 
months’ journey to Jerusalem. 

His first undertaking, once he arrived in the 
ruined city, was that of rebuilding the wall. He 
realized that until the city was protected from its 
enemies, the inhabitants could never be at rest. 
Accordingly he drafted all the able-bodied Jews in 
and around Jerusalem, and set them to work. It 
was a difficult undertaking, chiefly because the 
Samaritans would give the builders no rest. Two 
divisions had to be organized: one to build and 
another to fight. There was endless spying and con- 
spiring and deception. Nehemiah hurried the work 
with all his might, for the Samaritans had carried 
their agitation against him as far as the court of 


112 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Babylon, and he feared he might suddenly be re- 
called. 

Finally, though laboring most of the time under 
fire, Nehemiah’s men completed the wall. It ex- 
tended much further than the one it replaced, for 
it inclosed not merely Jerusalem but also several 
little nearby villages. It was high and thick and 
strong. In effect it was the foundation of the re- 
stored Jewish state. 


2 


The rebuilding of the city wall, however, was 
but the beginning of Nehemiah’s work. Within 
the community the morale was at its lowest ebb, 
and to this the leader had to turn his attention next. 
The poor, who had had to neglect their farms while 
working on the wall, were now being crushed in 
the fists of the money lenders. The priests were 
lazy and dissolute; the laymen scoffed at God and 
His worship. The Sabbath, which had attained 
such importance in the Exile, was now neglected 
and forgotten. The taking of heathen and _half- 
breed women as wives, was common in every 
family. Unless a complete and drastic reform was 
brought about immediately, it was clear that the 
career of the whole community would soon be 
ended. 

Nehemiah and another leader, a scribe named 
Ezra, realized this and fell to work. The whole 
people was assembled in Jerusalem and there a new 
code of laws, one that had probably been drawn up 
in Babylonia on the basis of Ezekiel’s ideas, was 
forced upon them. All those who had taken heathen 


THE PRIEST TRIUMPHANT 113 


wives into their homes were ordered to send them 
away. Outstanding debts were canceled; the priest- 
hood was purged; the Sabbath laws were strictly 
enforced. From end to end the life of the community 
was swept clean by the two reformers. From a 
lawless, reckless, godless populace, the Jews were 
suddenly transformed into a band of puritans. 

And the community was saved—for a while. 


3 


Now for the first time those who had remained 
in exile began to throng back to their homeland. 
From Babylonia they came in a steady stream; 
probably from Egypt and other lands too. Back 
they came to the blue hills of Judea, once more to 
take up life there. But it was a life far different 
from that which their ancestors had known two 
centuries earlier. The newcomers were filled with 
a thousand new ideas gleaned from the foreign 
peoples among whom they had sojourned. They 
were no longer simple tribesmen with crude ‘‘small- 
town’ ideas. They had traveled and seen the world. 
They were ‘“‘civilized.”’ 

Yet for all that they were ‘‘civilized’’—perhaps 
because of it—their religion was hardly so vital, 
so dramatic, as it had been in the days of Micah or 
Jeremiah. It had become a religion of law rather 
than a free play of the spirit. It laid stress on 
showy externals, on essentially unimportant things— 
not eating certain foods—bringing regular gifts 
to the priest—observing certain festivals. 

And the Exile was very largely to blame for this 
ehange. Even before the destruction of the old 


114 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Temple, the seeds of a religion of priestliness had 
taken root in Palestine. But it had been unable 
to flourish then because the greater prophets were 
most strenuously opposed to it, and the people them- 
selves had only feebly been attracted by it. Now, 
however, that the Jews had seen the great temples 
and had witnessed the gorgeous ceremonies of priest- 
ridden peoples like the Babylonians, they took to 
the imitation of that sort of thing with alacrity. 
And gone were the rebels, the true prophets, who 
might have stemmed the tide in its favor. 

The change was a tremendous one. Before the 
Exile the Jews had all transgressed their religion 
because that religion, the work of the prophets, had 
been too high for them. But now the Jews no 
longer transgressed it—because at the hands of the 
priests it had been brought low. 


t 


To what extent it had been brought low can be 
learned from a study of the prophecies of the day. 
There were still prophets in the land, but a tawdry, 
time-serving lot they were. The style of their 
preaching was stilted and forced. They did not ery 
out with the thundering directness of an Amos or 
a Jeremiah; they used strange symbols and spoke in 
twisted and far-fetched allegories. And for the most 
part the burthen of their preaching was a cheap 
jingo nationalism. These prophets declared the 
Jews were a pious and perfect people, all because they 
brought sacrifices to the priests at Jerusalem in a 
pious and perfect fashion. As for the other peoples 
on earth, they were all unspeakably wicked and sin- 


THE PRIEST TRIUMPHANT 115 


ful. Soon, these prophets declared, very soon, they 
would be cut down. 

The old yearning for the coming of the Reign of 
Peace was despised now, and the new prophets 
looked forward instead to the day when plow- 
shares would be turned into swords, and pruning- 
hooks would be made into spears. The old dream 
of a Messiah who would bring justice and freedom 
to all men, was perverted into an ache for a ruthless 
conqueror, a war lord, who would wade in the blood 
of every heathen who refused to bring sacrifices to 
Jerusalem three times a year! The Jews alone were 
considered blessed; the goyim, the Gentiles, were all 
accursed. 

It was a mean and loathsome doctrine. It was 
very like the doctrine—only with the characters 
completely reversed—which is still uttered to-day 
by too many preachers in the world. 

But it was a doctrine that did not go unchal- 
lenged in that early time. There were some in the 
land of Judea who did see the ugliness of it, and 
even though they dared not openly preach against 
it, they were not altogether silent. They voiced 
their protest not in sermons but in stories, in light 
bits of fiction which below the surface were freighted 
heavily with meaning. For instance, someone wrote 
the beautiful story which we call the Book of Ruth, 
and someone else wrote the powerful novel which 
we call the Book of Jonah. 


5 


The Book of Ruth is a veiled protest against the 
laws of Ezra and Nehemiah prohibiting intermar- 


116 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


riage. It tries to show that even King David, who 
by this time was thought to be the greatest monarch 
that ever reigned, was himself descended from a 
noble Gentile woman, a Moabitess named Ruth. 

The Book of Jonah in a like fashion was a veiled 
protest against the narrow nationalism of the new 
prophets. Its main character, Jonah, is just such 
a prophet: a man who thinks God cares only for 
the Hebrews. When the divine call comes to him 
to preach to the Gentile city of Nineveh, the age- 
old foe of Jerusalem, he is highly displeased. Why 
should he, a Hebrew prophet, trouble himself about 
the sinful heathens? Let them perish in their sin! 

So instead of obeying, the command, he tries to 
escape God’s reach by snéaking off to a foreign land. 
But soon he learns that God’s reach extends far 
beyond the borders of little Palestine, for the boat 
in which he hides is overtaken by a furious storm. 
He is cast into the sea and is saved from death only 
because God sends a whale to swallow him. 

And then, when Jonah is once more on dry land 
and the call to go to Nineveh is repeated, he is 
overawed and obeys. He goes to that city, tells 
the inhabitants that within forty days they will 
all be destroyed, and then sits back righteously to 
see his prophecy fulfilled. 

But to his vexation he is totally disappointed. 
Those goyim prove not nearly so wicked as he had 
thought them, for they take his words to heart and 
repent. And when Jonah bursts out in angry com- 
plaint because the city is spared, God reasons with 
him gently and explains His conduct. The picture 
drawn of God is almost that of an old and wise man 


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118 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


patting the disgruntled Jonah on the head and mur- 
muring: ‘‘There, there now, don’t be a child! If 
those Gentiles are wicked, it is not their fault. They 
are ignorant as the dumb beasts in their stalls. I 
must be compassionate and long-suffering; I must 
forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

That in colloquial paraphrase is God’s message 
to Jonah—and of course, it was meant for all Judea 
to hear. It was the ery of some high-minded rebel 
against the tribal bigotry of the day. It was the 
ery that the prophet Malachi had raised years 
earlier when he declared, ‘‘Have we not all one 
Father? Hath not one God created us all? ”’ 

But the day had passed when a prophet dared 
utter that doctrine in the open. He had to cover 
it up somewhat by putting it into the form of a novel. 

The great day of the prophet was gone. 

The reign of the priest had come. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE GREEK INVASION BRINGS ON THE FIRST 
WAR FOR FREEDOM OF THOUGHT 


Year by year the power of the priests grew mightier 
among the Jews. Wealth rapidly accumulated in 
their hands, for each season the plain people had to 
take them the choicest portions of their flocks and 
harvests. The old democratic ideal of the prophets 
that all Jews were priests, was forgotten. Now only 
those who were supposed to come of the tribe of 
Levi were allowed to minister in the Temple; and 
furthermore only those of the family of Aaron of the 
tribe of Levi were considered holy enough actually 
to perform the sacrifices; and still further, only one 
directly descended from Solomon’s favorite priest, 
Zadok, could possibly become the High Priest. 

The High Priest was virtually the king of the 
land, and the lesser priests were the princes. They 
were no better, of course, than lay kings and princes. 
They were forever conspiring among themselves, 
cheating and murdering their way from one office 
to another. But for all their corruption, they did 
succeed in doing one thing: they kept the Jews 
alive as a separate people. They walled them in 
with their little rules and regulations, keeping them 
rigorously segregated from all the other tribes and 
peoples. Even the half-Jewish Samaritans were 


120 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


cut off completely and had to start a temple of their 
own in northern Palestine.* 


2 


But, despite the efforts of the priests, foreign 
influences did seep into the life of the people. Gradu- 
ally their language was corrupted from pure Hebrew 
to a jargon called Aramaic, so that after a few genera- 
tions they could not understand even their own 
Scriptures. In their synagogues each Sabbath— 
for those ‘‘meeting-houses”’ they had created in the 
Exile had become common now throughout Judea— 
they had to read their Holy Writings through an 
Aramaic translation called the Targum. 

And many of their religious ideas changed too. 
From the Persians they had learned of angels and 
devils, and also of Another World. For the first 
time in their history they began to believe in Satan, 
and in hell and heaven. Before this time God had 
seemed very near to the Jews; but now they began to 
think of Him as very far away—so far that he had to 
do His work through the agency of good or evil mes- 
sengers. And at one time the Jews had thought that 
all life was lived in this world, and that after death 
both righteous and wicked simply descended to the 
‘‘Pit,” where they wandered about as lifeless ghosts. 
But now that this world held but little joy in store 
for them, they began vaguely to dream of a World 
to Come which only the righteous would inherit. 


* The Samaritans are still to be found ae to-day, at two 
hundred of them in all—the last remnant of an ever-rejected 
but never-daunted people. And still to-day they have their 
high priest and their ancient worship! 


yes ~~ 


ENTER THE GREEK 121 


Outwardly no sign of this change in thought was 
evident. None was there to hail it, and so none could 
rise to decry it. With meek regularity the people 
brought their offerings to the priests, and with 
sanctimonious grace the priests accepted them. And 
seemingly nothing was happening. 

But then came the Greek, and all was made open. 


3 


In the fateful year 333 B. c. Alexander the Great 
became master of the Persian Empire, and a year 
later, on his march toward Egypt, he took possession 
of Palestine. (The little land was still the one bridge 
used by the Empire builders. . . .) But this Alex- 
ander, a mere boy in years, was quite unlike the 
ordinary world-conqueror. His aim seems to have 
been not so much the gaining of power as the spread- 
ing of culture. He dreamed of scattering through- 
out the world the seeds of the high Greek civiliza- 
tion. In every land he entered he tried to create a 
center of Greek influence; and so well did he suc- 
ceed that though he died at the age of thirty-three 
his Greek colonies dotted all of the then-known 
world. 

Alexander’s effect on the Jews and their religion 
was greater than that of any other non-Jew in 
history. He was generous to them and gave them 
every liberty; but at the same time he located 
peaceful settlements of his own people throughout 
Palestine. The result was a growing familiarity with 
all things Greek. Jews began to affect the use of 
Greek words in their conversation, and began to 
give their children Greek names. Just as nowadays 


122 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


little Samuel is called Seymour and little Sarah is 
named Thyra, so in those days little Jochanan 
became John and little Shalomtziyon became Sa- 
lome. The young Jews began to frequent the gymna- 
siums and to idolize the Greek athletes. They 
became ‘‘sports.”’ 

Hellenism—the word comes from Hellas, meaning 


RCM recom Ad eg ho a, Pere 
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2 
a 


7 


10.—Alexander’s Empire 


Greece—began to make itself felt in every walk 
of Jewish life, especially in the many Jewish settle- 
ments outside of Palestine. Unfortunately, it was 
not the Hellenism of classic Greece, the Hellenism 
that flowered in the genius of Socrates, Plato, Soph- 
ocles, and Phidias. Rather it was that Hellenism 
debased and sullied through long-handling by 
Macedonians and other lesser tribes. 

But debased as it was, it nevertheless proved 
attractive. HEven the priests in Jerusalem began to 


ENTER THE GREEK 123 


take to it. Indeed, they were attracted to it even 
more than the plain people. The story goes that 
they actually left the sacrifices unburnt on the altars 
in the Temple, and hurried off to the arenas to watch 
the Greek athletes there. Greek manners—and 
vices—became the great fashion of the day, for the 


THE EMPIRES WA 

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11.—After Alexander 


more a Jew aped them the better seemed his chances 
of growing in power and station. 


4 


Of course, this change did not come about over- 
night, but took three or four generations. After 
Alexander died his empire was divided into three 
kingdoms; and Palestine being the bridge between 
two of them, it naturally became for over a hundred 
years the scene of constant warfare. But finally, 


124 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


in 198 B. c., it was definitely made a part of the 
kingdom of Syria, and for a while there was peace. 

Perhaps because the Greeks made no attempt to 
force its progress, Hellenism had continued seep- 
ing steadily into Palestine during all that troubl- 
ous century. In the course of time it would so 
have flooded the land that Jewish life and thought 
would probably have been drowned out completely. 
But one day there arose in Syria a king named 
Antiochus Epiphanus who by his headstrong impa- 
tience wiped out all these gains of Greek culture. 
It is difficult to understand just what was wrong 
with this king. He seems to have been learned and 
markedly clever—but also at moments quite in- 
sane. He took great delight in poking fun at the 
whole business of religion, and yet at the same time 
he tried to build a religion around himself. That 
is why he called himself Theos Epiphanes, which 
means ‘‘The Evident God.” 

Judea at the time was seething with unrest be- 
cause the corrupt, Hellenized priests were at last 
being brought to book by a few of the pious Jews. 
It looked something like a political uprising to 
Antiochus, and on his way home from a campaign 
in Egypt he stopped in the middle of the ‘‘bridge”’ 
to attend to the trouble. He looted the Temple 
and then simply ordered Judaism to cease. Just 
that! Evidently he thought it would be quite easy 
for him to stamp out this obscure and, as he thought, 
very odd little religion. His orders were that never 
more should the Sabbath, or the rite of cireumci- 
sion, or the difference between ‘‘clean”’ and ‘‘un- 
clean”? food, be observed. Anyone found with a 


Oe ee 


ENTER THE GREEK 125 


Hebrew book in his possession was immediately 
to be put to death. Henceforth if there was to be 
any sacrificing it must be of swine’s flesh, and to 
Antiochus as god. 


5 


For a while starkest horror swept the land as 
the army of Antiochus began to put those orders 
into effect. There was looting and murder, wailing 
and shame. And then, like the breaking out of a 
mad fire, the people blazed into rebellion. A pious 
old priest named Mattathias began it when he ran 
his sword through one of the Syrian officers. Fleeing 
into the wilderness with his five sons, he there began 
to gather a band of desperate zealots. Then up and 
down the countryside they went, tipping over the 
hated altars set up by the foreigners, and putting 
to death the renegade Jews who had sacrificed on 
them. 

It was magnificent, but it seemed insane. The 
tattered rebels were untrained, unequipped, un- 
supported—a tiny band of priests and peons fighting 
with little more than their bare fists. The great 
hosts of Syria, armed, disciplined, and led by the 
greatest generals of the day, outnumbered them 
ten to one. It seemed sheer suicide! 

But it was not. Old Mattathias died soon after 
the beginning of the rebellion, but he was succeeded 
by one of his sons, Judas, who proved altogether 
a genius in warfare. Four tremendous armies 
were sent against him—one accompanied by dealers 
to buy the defeated Jews as slaves—and all four he 
utterly routed. Judas Maccabeus, Judas the ‘‘Ham- 


126 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


merer,’’ he was called by his elated followers—and 
deservedly. Stationing his little army in narrow 
passes, or rushing them by night marches to make 
sudden attacks at dawn, he harried and hacked and 
hammered the Syrians until at last they fled from 
before him. 

There came a lull in the fighting. On December 
25th, in the year 165 B. c. the Jews amid great re- 
joicings, cleansed the Temple of its swinish filth 
and rededicated it to God.* 


6 


And then they went on with the struggle. More 
than twenty years they went on with it, losing 
in the strife one after another of the five stalwart 
sons of old Mattathias. And finally in 148 B. c., 
they triumphed completely. The Syrian was driven 
utterly from the land, and Judea at last was free. 

Almost for the first time in history a war had 
consciously been waged for a spiritual principle. 
Not because of grinding taxation or political domina- 
tion had the Jews leapt to arms, but solely because 
of religious oppression. They had fought for that 
holiest of all causes, Freedom of Thought. 

And they had triumphed. 


* To this day the Jews celebrate that great victory with their 
annual Feast of Lights called Chanukah. 


—------ Yakyist” History (sudah) 
mi (160/72 900 story Cisraet) 


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(Yard Jimes ) 

NEHEMIAH Govenor, 444B¢. 
Walls of Jerusalem rebut? 
In viilidcion. of tke Priestly, Law 


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(Reign of the Priesis’) 
Ai eO ANDERS introduces Greek 


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Chart B. The Adventures of the Jews, Part IT 


CHAPTER XV 


THE ROMAN CONQUEST: SETS THE HELPLESS 
LITTLE NATION YEARNING FOR A MESSIAH 
TO DELIVER IT 


But the triumph of the Jews had been too com- 
plete. The war which had been waged at first only 
for religious freedom, ended in winning also political 
independence. And that added gain proved their 
undoing. 

Simon, the last of the five sons of Mattathias, 
was succeeded on the throne by his son, the High 
Priest, John Hyrcanus; and with him the tragedy 
began. Drunk with his new-found power, he under- 
took cruel and costly wars against his neighbors. 
In pursuance of his dream of carving out a great 
empire for himself, he hacked down the Samaritans 
on the north and the Edomites on the south. And 
not content merely with making those lands subject 
to his rule, he even compelled their inhabitants to 
accept his religion. Forcibly he converted them to 
Judaism. The grandson of old Mattathias who 
gave his life for the right to worship his own God in 
his own way, was now spending all his days trying 
to wrest that very right from others. 

But very soon a group of protestants began to 
make themselves heard in the land of Judea. They 
were called the Pharisees, the ‘‘ Interpreters,’ prob- 
ably because they were pious men who spent much 


IN THE TALONS OF ROME 129 


of their time studying and interpreting the Holy 
Scriptures.* ‘They cared not in the least for empire 
or dominion; their whole interest was in the Holy 
Law and its fulfillment. 

Those who belonged to the party in power in 


S SQ ee 
WAN i, 7 
/ 


12.—The Realm of the Maccabees 


the land were called the Sadducees, because they all 
sided with the supposed descendants of the ancient 
High Priest, Zadok. They were Hellenized aristo- 

* Pharisees does not mean “‘Separatists” as scholars long 


thought. Probably it comes from the Hebrew word pharash, 
which means “to make clear.” 


130 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


crats, for the most part priests; but they showed 
but feeble interest in their religion. Essentially 
they were politicians. Sacramental ward-bosses, 
one might call them. 


2 


Day by day the Pharisees grew bolder in their 
attacks on these Sadducees; but they were powerless 
to effect any reforms. King followed king in troublous 
succession, and the bootless wars went on. Within 


the land there was continuous strife. The Phar- 


isees went about, objecting and pleading, and were 
butchered and imprisoned for their trouble. There 
was endless intrigue in the Temple among the 
priests, open bribery and shameless corruption. 
Pretenders committed murder to crawl to the throne, 
and then in turn were murdered. Royal sons plotted 
against their own fathers, and princely brothers 
made war on one another. 

Not a hundred years had passed from the time 
all Judea had blazed with a white passion for liberty 
—and now the fire had sunk to a low play of smoky 
flame around a petty little throne. As so often has 
since happened in the world’s history, a glorious 
revolution failed only because it succeeded. 

The lawlessness in the land grew so flagrant finally 
that the Pharisees could stand it no longer. In 
despair they appealed for help to Rome, the great 
world-power of the day. No doubt they realized 
they would have to pay with their political indepen- 
dence for Rome’s help; but that did not deter them. 
What cared they who was master of their land, so 
long as they were left masters of their religion? 


a 


IN THE TALONS OF ROME 131 


Pompey, the Roman general, answered the call 
of the Pharisees; and after his conquest of the land 
there was quiet for a while. Many of the Sadducees 
were sent as prisoners to Rome, and the Pharisees 
were left in peace to study their beloved law. 


3 


But soon trouble began again. Sadducee leaders 
escaped from Rome and returned to foment rebel- 
lion in Judea. One after another they appeared 
in the land, raising little armies, terrorizing the 
countryside, and then going down to quick and 
bloody defeat. Finally the Romans began to lose 
patience, and grew less tolerant toward the whole 
people. The Temple was looted and the land again 
and again pillaged by Roman armies. For more 
than twenty years virtual anarchy prevailed in 
Judea. Kings and pretenders, governors and high 
priests, generals and bandits all clawed and fought 
in the mad scramble for power. 

For a while an Edomite half-Jew named Herod 
managed to get control of the land. By conniving 
with Rome he had himself made king of the Jews, 
and then with unspeakable cruelty he battered his 
people into submission. He murdered his own wife, 
three of his sons, and many others of his family, 
in striving to make his position firm. And then he 
built a magnificent new Temple in belated effort 
to win the favor of the Jews. 

But it was to no avail. The splendor and pros- 
perity which the king brought to the land meant 
nothing to the people. They hated and loathed him, 
and the moment he died they rebelled against the 


132 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


son who succeeded him. Three thousand Jews were 
slaughtered right in the Temple courtyard, and the 
rebellion was crushed. But in a little while another 
started and flamed up. Again there were massacres, 
and again the Temple was sacked. But the people 
would not stay under control. They utterly refused 
to be subject to the son of the hated Edomite, and 
Rome finally had to transfer him from the land. 

The last vestige of independence was gone. Judea 
was now but a part of the Roman province of Syria. 

Yet still no peace came to the unhappy little 
land. The Roman governors proved a cruel and 
rascally lot. They provoked the people in a thou- 
sand ways, and all Judea seethed with unrest. Vio- 
lent patriots arose, and they spread a reign of terror 
against all who were supposed to sympathize with 
Rome. The Zealots they were called, and night 
after night they committed murders in the cities 
and villages of Judea. There were riots and lynch- 
ings; and in punishment, innumerable crucifixions. 
Judea was gory with its own blood as it writhed in 
the talons of Rome. 


t 


But dark as was the night—and never had it been 
darker—still a hope gleamed for the people. It was 
the old hope of the great prophets, the wild hope that 
soon, very soon, the Messiah would come. Through 
all those years—it was now fully four hundred years 
since Haggai and Zachariah had promised that the 
‘‘Anointed One” would come if the Temple were 
rebuilt—the hope had been kept alive in Judea. It 
had been kept alive by many writers whose names 


IN THE TALONS OF ROME 133 


we do not know, but whose books—called by us 
the Apocalypses—are still extant. 

Most of those Apocalypses were written secretly 
and put in circulation as the works of various great 
men of the past. Some were claimed to be the 
work of Ezra, others of Jeremiah, of Solomon, of the 
Patriarchs, even of Noah. The real authors had to 
make such claims because otherwise their books 
would not have been read at all. People thought 
that only the great men of the past had known the 
Truth, had been inspired by God. Therefore only 
the very ancient writings seemed to them holy 
enough to be read in their synagogues, and these 
they called simply seforim, ‘‘Books.” (The Greek 
for seforim is biblia, from which we get our word 
Bible.) So the latter-day author in order to get 
his own book included among these seforim, had 
to say that he had discovered an hitherto unknown 
production of some ancient worthy. 

To us that may seem sheer dishonesty; but that 
is only because our standards are different. An 
author’s first desire is to get his book in the hands 
of the people, and in those days, it was considered 
no harm to resort to this trick to secure publication. * 


* Sometimes an author not merely palmed off his own ideas 
as the thought of some other and greater man; if he got the 
chance he even inserted them bodily in that other man’s genuine 
writings. That is one of the main reasons why so many contra- 
dictions and bewildering inconsistencies deface most of the 
books of the Bible. Those who copied them on new scrolls 
year after year—for it was centuries before the invention of 
printing—not merely made mistakes and carelessly skipped 
words and lines, but also wrote in whole new chapters of their 
own devising. 


134 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


5 


In the horror of the Syrian and Roman perse- 
cutions, the land was flooded with these books 
bearing false titles. Almost all of them dealt with the 
coming of the Messiah, and described in detail just 
how and when this present world would be utterly 
destroyed and the new one miraculously ushered 
in. We can hardly understand most of them, now, 
for they are written in a queer and incoherent style. 
They are chock-full of strange visions and tortuous 
calculations attempting to prove all the old prophe- 
cies literally true. For instance, before the Exile 
Jeremiah had promised that after seventy years 
Judah would be restored to its own land to enjoy 
the blessings of the Messianic kingdom. Probably 
he had meant that to be taken as a round number. 
It was like saying that ‘‘before very long” or ‘‘in 
the lifetime of our children” these great wonders 
would happen. 

But the later writers took the numbers in those 
prophecies literally, and since they knew that the 
seventy years had long passed and no Messiah had 
come, they began to juggle with the figures. At one 
time, they said seventy years meant really seventy 
weeks of years—in other words, four hundred and 
ninety. That particular calculation was made when 
about four hundred and eighty-eight of the four 
hundred and ninety years had already passed, and 
fierce terror and joy swept through the land at the 
nearness of the Great Day. ... But the four 
hundred and ninetieth year soon passed, and no 
Messiah came—and more juggling had to be done. 


=o 


= nl watt 


PS Gape ot ewe 


IN THE TALONS OF ROME 135 


The number seventy somehow fascinated the 
Jews of the time, and they twisted and tortured and 
dragged out of it the most far-fetched and ridicu- 
lous calculations. It was not that the people had 
lost their heads—though the times were cruel enough 
to make them do so. It was simply that these 
Jews, with their tremendous will to live, knew 
themselves to be on the verge of death. And they 
would not die. Anything—any wild promise or 
wilder distortion of a promise—anything was clutched 
at in that terrible hour. They would not die! 


CHAPTER XVI 


JOSHUA OF NAZARETH, A YOUNG PROPHET, IS 
HAILED AS THE MESSIAH BY THE JEWS, AND 
IS CRUCIFIED BY THE ROMANS 


There is something intensely pathetic in the sight 
of tiny Judea bleeding to death in the claws of a 
great empire, yet always, always, dreaming on of 
release. But even more pathetic is the story of the 
hysteria and excitement which that constant dream- 
ing stirred up in the land. The more horrible the 
persecutions and massacres, the nearer seemed the 
advent of the ‘‘Anointed One.” Each day was 
thought to be the very last, and every hour the 
people pricked up their ears for the sound of the 
Messiah’s trumpet. It was like being adrift at 
night in an open boat—none knew when the cries for 
help would be answered. 

Frenzied mystics, many of them more than half- 
mad, went up and down the land and cried in shrill, 
hysterical voices: ‘‘Repent ye, for the kingdom of 
Heaven is at hand!” Most of them belonged to 
a secret fraternity of hermits called the Essenes, 
and they believed that strict piety, charity, and 
bathing in the streams—baptism as‘it was called in 
Greek—would alone prepare the people for the com- 
ing of the Messiah. 

In some of these mystics the great spirit of the 
ancient prophets seemed reborn, and they attracted 


JOSHUA OF NAZARETH 137 


enormous followings. One of them, a Jew named 
John, was especially influential in those days. He 
was a wild-looking young man who took his stand 
by the River Jordan and called on the people to 
leap in and be cleansed of their sins. They called 
him John the Baptist, and hundreds flocked to him. 
But because he offended the cruel king Herod by 
his open denunciations of the ruler’s wickedness, 
he was imprisoned and later put to death. 

Many others, however, arose to take John’s place: 
young wild-eyed men who flayed the people with 
bitter tongues and drove them to the verge of stark 
madness, and gentle souls who tried to bring them 
comfort, and only stirred them the more. 

There was one preacher in particular, a youth 
named Joshua—he who is known to us as Jesus of 
Nazareth. 


2 


It is not easy to write of this man Joshua. To 
some he has become altogether a god, and to others— 
because so much evil has been done them in his 
name—he seems very like a fiend. But if we are 
to obtain any true knowledge or understanding of 
him, he must be to us neither god nor fiend, but 
simply an earnest young Jew who came to his people 
in their night of terror and sought to bring them 
light. 

More has been said and written of this one man 
than of any other in all history—but still we know 
exceedingly little about him. All that is preserved 
of his own words was set down years after his death 
in a tongue he did not speak, and by men not nearly 


138 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


so great as to understand all he said. And even 
that little was copied and recopied by scribe after 
scribe until to-day much of it seems tortured out of 
all likeness to what may have been the true words. 
Save for what is set down in the New Testament, 
we know not a thing about this prophet Joshua. 
The Pharisees, who were writing whole volumes 
at about the same time, make no mention of him 
whatsoever. Nor have the Roman records any 
light to throw on his life or death. This lack of any 
reference to him in the writings of the day is very 
perplexing. Perhaps preachers and prophets were 
too common in the land then for extended comment 
to be made about any one of them... . 

While he lived, hundreds came eagerly to hear 
him; but once he died he was soon forgotten—soon 
forgotten by all save a few. But those few remem- 
bered him well. 


3 


He was born in the north of Palestine, in Galilee, 
and his father was a humble carpenter. He, too, 
in his youth was a carpenter. He had little 
learning, for in that region and among such poor 
folk, learning was exceedingly rare. He spoke in 
Aramaic, the jargon of the day, and perhaps he 
could not even read Hebrew. But like most other 
Jewish lads even of his lowly station, he did know 
the words of the great prophets of old, and the 
prayers which the pious Pharisees were wont to 
recite in the synagogues. And what is far more 
important, the God-hungry spirit of the Jew was 
mighty in his bones. He saw the travail of his 


JOSHUA OF NAZARETH 139 


people and it so stirred him that he could not abide 
in peace in his village. He arose from among his 
tools, and taking staff in hand he went forth to make 
ready for the Day of the Messiah. 

First he was one of them that followed that great 
Jew, John the Baptist. Then, when John was 
murdered by the king, young Joshua went forth 
and preached by himself. 

He preached in the villages of Galilee, and the 
simple folk, the peasants and the fishermen with 
their wives and little children, flocked to hear his 
words. Sometimes he spoke in the synagogues, 
for it seems any Jew who so desired could arise in 
them and preach. But more often he preached on 
the dusty highways, on the beach of the Sea of 
Galilee, and in the fields. | 

Of what Joshua looked like, we know nothing. 
No doubt he was dark like all the other Jews then, 
and probably he was thin and not very strong in 
body. 

He had no new gospel to bring to the people, but 
only sought to have them understand and love that 
which long before had been brought to them. He 
told them, as had so many prophets before him, 
that God was a Loving Father who would forgive 
them all if they but repented. Also he told them 
that soon, very soon, the Messiah would come, and 
that then the Kingdom of Heaven would be seen 
on earth. 

He taught the people to recite simple and com- 
forting prayers like the one beginning, ‘‘Our Father 
which art in Heaven’? —prayers made up of verses 
which the Pharisees in Jerusalem were wont to 


140 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


recite. And he reminded the people of certain laws 
and commandments in the ancient seforim, the 
Holy Scriptures. Especially he reminded them of 
that highest law of all—that they should love one 
another. Even their enemies should they love if 
they would enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 


+ 


But what must have attracted the people most 
was the manner of this young prophet. A spirit 
breathed through his preaching that rarely if ever 
before had been known in the land. There was an 
overwhelming warmth and kindliness, a tremendous 
love in it all. With the exception of Hosea, the 
other prophets seem to have been fierce and im- 
patient men. Their words were like whetted swords 
that cut down the sinners, that bruised and stabbed 
and pierced them through. Or they were like knotted 
whips that flayed them. 

But this Joshua, save at rare moments, was all 
tenderness and benignity. Not merely did he tell 
of God’s great love; most earnestly he tried to 
practice it. 

And that was a day when not love but hate was 
sovereign among men. The Romans crucified the 
Zealots, the Zealots murdered the Sadducees, the 
Sadducees loathed the Pharisees; and all of them 
together despised the wretched folk in the slums 
of the towns and on the farms of the land. 

Perhaps that was why the young Galilean was 
so followed and so devotedly believed. To a people 
tired unto death of hate, he came with a word of love. 

Especially to the cowed and broken, to the poor 


JOSHUA OF NAZARETH 141 


and unlearned, he came with that word of love. He 
told them that in God’s sight they were more pre- 
cious even than the wealthiest and the most learned 
in all the land. He went down to the sinners in 
the places of shame, to the outcasts and the pari- 
ahs, and told them that if they would but repent 
they could not fail to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 

And they believed him. Desiring to believe, thirst- 
ing for the certainty that they too might enter 
the World to Come, the souls of the lowly went 
out to this Joshua and his words as the parched 
tongues of cattle reach out for the rain. 

And they were grateful to him. They flung them- 
selves to the ground and kissed his feet for his good- 
- ness toward them. Indeed, they were too grateful 
and praised him so that he had to chide them. Only 
the good God, he declared, deserved such praise. 

But he could not stay them from it. Never before 
had so benign a prophet come among them; and 
their adoration would suffer no curtailing. And as 
the months passed and he continued preaching, 
lo, he began to seem in their eyes even more than 
a mortal being! They began to believe that he 
could work miracles, that he could heal the halt and 
blind—even that he could raise the dead. He seemed 
too near perfection, too wondrous to be just a man 
like themselves. He seemed the very Messiah! .. . 


5 


We cannot tell for certain whether Joshua him- 
self ever became possessed of that idea. Perhaps 
he did. With a great multitude hailing and wor- 
shiping him as the “Anointed One,” the thought 


142 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


must have been nigh impossible to resist. But though 
there is this uncertainty as to his own mind, there 
can be none as to the mind of the people. To them 
he was indeed the long-promised Messiah come at 
last to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. And 
when after ministering three years in Galilee, the 
prophet went down to keep the Passover in Jeru- 
salem, his fame preceded him and he was greeted 
there by ecstatic mobs as the awaited Deliverer. 

But his triumphal entry into Jersualem proved 
young Joshua’s undoing. Before five days had 
passed, he knew his end was near. The Sadducees, 
whom he had flaunted the very first day, were 
feverishly busy, plotting evil against him. He had 
driven their money changers out of the Temple 
courts, and they could not forgive him for it. He 
tried to escape beyond the city walls, but he was 
pursued, betrayed, and taken prisoner to the house 
of a high priest. There hastily he was tried by a 
court of priests, and found guilty—though of what 
crime we cannot now tell. Perhaps his very con- 
demners could not have told either. They wanted 
to put him out of the way, as centuries earlier they 
had wanted to put Jeremiah out of the way. He 
was their enemy, and they could have no thought of 
mercy. 

From the high priests’ house he was taken to the 
palace of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. 
Again was he questioned, this time. by the governor 
alone. And then abruptly he was sentenced to 
digest avi 

There was no justice in it all. Pilate, a quick, 
choleric official, could have had no real understanding 


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144 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


of what the young prophet had done, or had dreamed 
of doing. He seems to have thought him but another 
mad young patriot, a rebel against Rome, a pre- 
tender to the throne of Judea. He considered the 
strange man a troubler in the land—so he had to 
put him to death. 


6 


And after the sun had risen the next day, the 
Roman soldiers took that young Jew to the top of a 
hill nearby, scourged him with fagots, crowned 
him in derision with a wreath of thorns, and nailed 
him to a cross. They nailed him to a cross between 
two thieves, and over his head they carved the 
mocking words, ‘‘ King of the Jews.’ And there in 
mortal pain he hung for hours. Gone were the 
huzzahing crowds; gone even were his own disciples. 
Only a little knot of bewildered women and near 
friends stood by to watch as he passed away. In 
the city the Jews were busy preparing for the Pass- 
over feast; in the fields the disciples were hiding, 
too terrified to confess they had even known the 
martyr. Deserted he hung there on that lone hill. 

The sun began to redden the far horizon, and the 
man Joshua could no longer endure the pangs. He 
began to moan. Brokenly he moaned as the throes 
of death came over him. ‘‘My God! my God! why 
hast thou forsaken me?” he begged. 

And then he died. 


—_ ee 


CHAPTER XVII 


HOW A NEW RELIGION WAS CREATED AROUND 
THE STORY OF THE CRUCIFIED PROPHET 


Joshua of Nazareth died, and as far as Pontius 
Pilate and the priests were concerned, that was the 
end of that matter. 

But it was not. Rather it was but the beginning. 

The Jerusalem mob soon forgot the young man 
who had been killed for preaching war with Rome 
when he had only preached peace with God. They 
forgot him because other preachers, perhaps many 
others, came after him—and were also killed. 

But among the fishermen and peasants of Galilee 
there was no forgetting him. His prophecies had 
become too much a part of their life for them ever 
to forget him who had uttered them. And when 
the bedraggled disciples came trudging home with 
the news of the prophet’s death, great was the con- 
sternation among those poor people. They were 
utterly desolated. For if the Romans had been 
able to kill this Messiah, then he could not have 
been the real Messiah after all! He must have been 
a charlatan and a fraud! 

But that they could not believe. They who had 
known the young man Joshua, they who had heard 
him and followed him, could not possibly believe 
he had deceived them. They could not even be- 
lieve he was dead. To them it seemed incredible 


146 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


that a soul so wondrous and godlike as his could 
have been snuffed out on a cross hard by Jerusalem’s 
gate. 

And soon there began a furtive whispering among 
those scattered believers. It was said the body 
of the Master was no longer in the tomb where it 
had been buried. On the third day it had disap- 
peared, so the rumor went. The body had gone 
up to heaven—straight up to God—just as the 
body of Elijah had gone up to God. People had seen 
it go up. Solemnly they swore they had seen it 
ascend into heaven. 

And they that set those rumors afloat were not 
consciously telling falsehoods. They themselves 
believed them. They believed them because they 
could not bear to think that he whom they had 
looked on as their Messiah had perished. And they 
that heard the rumors—and eagerly passed them on 
—believed them for the same reason. ‘Those unhappy 
folk, aching in every limb because of the travail 
of the world that then was, would not without a 
struggle give up their hope of the World to Come. 


2 


And thus was born a strange and obscure sect 
called the Nazarenes. Its members were all Jews, 
but Jews with a peculiar doctrine. They believed 
that the Messiah had already come, and that he 
was now in heaven watching over them with tender 
but troubled eyes. If they lived the life he had 
commanded them, if they loved one another and 
shared their wealth and held no slaves in bondage, 
and put away all lust and vain desire, then he would 


CHRISTIANITY IS BORN 147 


be able to return to them. Swiftly he would re- 
turn to them and this time he would surely usher 
in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Perhaps there were five hundred in Galilee, per- 
haps a thousand, who held to that doctrine. The 
other Jews paid little or no attention to the sect, 
for they knew its members were simple peasant 
folk living in a region where new doctrines, and 
fanaticisms, and sects arose almost daily. The 
other Jews were too much occupied in their death 
struggle with Rome to concern themselves with the 
tiny movement. 


3 


And while the other Jews fought with governor 
after governor, complaining, petitioning, rebelling, 
and dying, that tiny movement grew. A certain 
man named Saul or Paul, a Jew of Roman citizen- 
ship, became its champion. He was not like the 
other Nazarenes, for he was a man of the world, a 
person of culture, a magnificent orator. Nor was 
his doctrine at all as simple as theirs. He took the 
one central thought, the belief in the Messiah—the 
Christ as he called him in Greek—who had died on 
the cross; but to it he added many other thoughts 
gleaned by him in the market places of Asia Minor 
and the isles of the sea. 

Even in his day, however, the movement was 
not yet considered a new religion, but still esteemed 
a part of Judaism. And Paul preached it to Jews 
in their synagogues scattered throughout the Med- 
iterranean lands. Jewish colonies had long been 
established in many of those foreign cities, but 


148 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


they were made up in large part of Gentiles who 
had been converted to Judaism. Such conversions 
had been common everywhere for so many years, 
that there were many more Jews outside of Judea 
than init. But the Jerusalem Pharisees looked upon 
all those new Jewish converts as only half-Jews. 
Most of them were uncircumcised; and they did 
not keep all the laws set down in the seforim, the 
Holy Scriptures. They still clung to many of their 
old beliefs and superstitions. 

It is difficult for us to understand just what was 
going on in the civilized world at that time. <A great 
hunger seems to have taken possession of all the 
races, a hunger for faith, for religion. It was a 
tired, a dying world—a world that had lost its best 
blood in wasteful wars of conquests. And in its 
last hours it gulped thirstily from every cup of faith 
held to its lips, hoping wildly that some one of them 
might contain the elixir of life. In the lands around 
the Mediterranean there was almost an orgy of belief- 
making in those years. All sorts of gods belonging to 
all sorts of religions were fused together—even their 
names were combined!—and sacrifices were offered 
to them all at one time. Not having complete 
faith in any one God, the people tried to make use 
of them all. 

For that reason, the strict orthodox Jews looked 
with suspicion on the converts they were winning 
day by day. The newcomers into the fold were 
too hectic, too feverish. And they came with too 
many of their old beliefs still strong in their hearts. 
So they were received with reservations—with 
severe reservations. 


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_ 150 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


4 


But Paul was not nearly so strict, .so narrow. 
He treated those converts as his equals, for he 
claimed that now that the Messiah had come, all 
of the old laws were no longer valid. Now Gentile 
and Jew were one, and uncircumcised as well as 
circumcised could enter the Kingdom of Heaven— 
if they but believed in him who was crucified. 

Paul was a shrewd man. He was willing to 
compromise. 

But the Pharisees, the strict Jews, were less 
shrewd. They were willing to lose the world rather 
than annul one jot or tittle of their law. With them 
it was all or nothing. 

Some say that was wrong of those Pharisees. 
They say they should have been less stiff-necked 
and uncompromising. Perhaps so. But when we 
see what came of Paul’s leniency, how far his fol- 
lowers strayed from the religion of him they called 
their Christ, we can hardly censure the Pharisees. 
Perhaps they were indeed bigoted to withdraw be- 
hind their high stockade of Law. But they seem 
to have sensed the fact that the hour was not yet 
ripe for them to do otherwise. 

It was all very well, thought the Pharisees, to 
make God’s house a house of prayer for all people— 
but first it had to be their God’s house. 

And thus a new religion was born. While the 
Pharisees in their self-righteousness hoarded what 
was, after all, the religion of Jesus, Paul spread far 
and wide what became the religion of the Christ. 

And so did Christianity begin. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY THE ROMAN 
LEGIONS, AND THE “END” IT BROUGHT TO THE 
JEWISH NATION 


In Judea the gory struggle between Roman and 
Jew dragged on. Only for a brief moment was there 
a respite when a grandson of Herod, a man favored 
by Rome yet beloved by the Jews, was made king 
of the land. But he died in the year 44 a. p. and 
from then on there was unbroken turmoil. Seven 
Roman governors followed each other in rapid 
succession, each one more cruel than the other. 
They drove the people to despair and madness by 
their wanton violations of religious feeling. 

Perhaps those governors were not altogether to 
blame. They were at their wits’ end. They had 
been able to handle all sorts of people in every part 
of the then-known world—but these Jews were al- 
together beyond them. They were the only people 
on earth who would rather die than offer sacrifices 
to the image of an emperor. They were willing to 
give up everything, their wealth, their homes, their 
land, their very lives—but they would not give up 
their God. To the Roman officials they seemed a 
spoiled, obstinate, half-demented people; and failing 
to win them over with kind words, they tried their 
swords. Thousands of Jews were put to death in 
those ghastly years. They were burned and crucified 
and massacred in droves. 


152 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Finally, in the year 66, matters reached a climax. 
The Jews could stand the tyranny no longer, and 
openly rebelled. Roman legions were sent down 
from Syria to quell the uprising, but to no avail. 
The Jews fought like maddened lions, and could 
not be subdued. Nero, the Roman emperor, realized 
this was no ordinary little outbreak, and quickly 
sent two of his ablest generals, Vespasian and Titus, 
to the scene. Down through Galilee they marched, 
fighting wildly a whole year before finally reducing 
it to subjection. Then west of Jerusalem they 
plowed a bloody furrow; then south; and then at 
last up to the walls of the city itself. 


2 


It is chiefly from the writings of a Jewish general 
named Josephus, a man who deserted his forces 
and then tried to do penance by recounting the 
heroism of those who stayed true, that we know 
what happened during the siege. Jerusalem became 
the scene of one of the most devastating contests 
in all history. The besieged within the city were 
divided into three camps, each wrangling with the 
other over who should be leader and how the war 
should be carried on. One held the lower city, another 
the upper, and a third the Temple area in between. 
Two of the factions began to quarrel over the pos- 
session of the town granaries, and after repeated 
raids and massacres, someone set fire to the whole 
vast store so that it was completely destroyed. 
There they were, a million or more Jews butchering 
each other in an ancient, dirty, high-walled city 


THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 153 


hardly a mile square in size; the food supplies gone; 
and the dread Roman already at the gates! . . 

And yet they would not surrender. 

Vespasian had been called back to Rome to be 
crowned as emperor, and Titus, his son, began the 
siege. His artillery hurled great boulders a quarter 
of a mile into the heart of the city. Great mounds 
were built close against the north wall and on these 
huge battering rams were placed. (Every tree 
within ten miles of the city had been cut down to 
make those rams.) And then, day and night the 
thunder of the rams was to be heard. 

Fifteen days the incessant pounding went on, and 
at last a breach was made in the outer wall. Nine 
days more, and the second wall fell. 

At last the Romans were masters of the lower 
city. 

But still the Jews would not surrender. In the 
upper city they huddled, starving and dying. There 
was murder among them over scraps of meat or 
bread. At night those who stole out to pick herbs 
and roots in the fields were crucified by the Romans 
who captured them—five hundred were crucified 
in one day—or were slain and robbed when they 
returned home. 

Yet they would not surrender. 

No, rather they became even more madly stubborn 
as their terrors increased. They undermined the 
Roman mounds so that the huge battering rams sud- 
denly came crashing to the ground. Then out they 
stormed like ravenous demons, flinging themselves 
full tilt at the enemy, and clawing, slashing, biting 
their way through. 


154 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


The great legions wavered—tottered—broke. And 
Titus retreated. 

But then came even greater horrors for the be- 
sieged. Titus had a high wall of earth five miles 
in length thrown all around the city—and sat down 
to wait. The suffering of the Jews seemed beyond 
bearing. Even Titus, a hard Roman not unused to 
war, could not stand the sight of it. He begged the 
mad zealots to surrender and have done with it all. 

But no. No surrender. Never! 

A month passed. Two. ‘The Romans returned 
to the attack. One wall fell, but a second had been 
raised by the Jews in the meantime. The second 
fell. But still the heroes fought on. They were 
taking their stand in the inner fortress now. The 
narrow streets ran with blood. Sickening was the 
stench of the dead bodies rotting in the hot summer 
sun. Jews fought each other in the streets over 
handfuls of the most loathsome food—filthy straw, 
bits of old leather, even offal. The wife of the high 
priest, who had been wont to have thick carpets 
laid from her house to the Temple so that her sandals 
might not be soiled, now staggered about in the 
alleyways in search of crusts. The daily offerings 
on the altars were no longer made because of the 
lack of animals. .. . 

But still no surrender. 

Titus again offered to make terms, but again the 
zealots refused to parley. They knew what terms 
with the enemy would mean—giving over the city. 
And they believed the city was God’s, not theirs, 
to give. And so wondrous was their faith that at the 
sight of it some of the Roman soldiers even deserted 


THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 155 


their own legions and ran to throw in their lot with 
the besieged. 

The fortress walls were scaled, and the zealots 
were forced to retreat to the Temple courts. For 
six days the battering rams savagely pounded the 
sacred walls, and then at last the inevitable end drew 
near. ‘Titus ordered that the sanctuary be spared, 
but his infuriated soldiers refused to listen. A burn- 
ing torch was hurled through the Golden Window, 
and immediately the wooden beams caught fire. 
Into the Temple courts the soldiers dashed, mas- 
sacring the thousands who had taken refuge there. 

And then there was quiet for a moment. 

But again the resistance blazed forth. The zealots 
retreated to the upper city, to their last inch of 
ground, and once more defied the enemy. Almost 
a whole month they held out there before they 
crumpled for good. They were starved out and 
exhausted. Their strength was utterly spent. 

The Romans came raging in, slaying until their 
arms were tired. Every alley, and room, and corner 
was choked with bleeding corpses. Then fire was 
set to everything—houses, buildings, walls—and 
the conquerors stood back to watch the flames. 

And thus was old Jerusalem destroyed. 


3 


It is said that more than a million Jews died in 
that siege. Of those who survived, ninety-seven 
thousand were made slaves. They were deported 
to labor in the mines of Egypt, or were forced to 
fight wild beasts in the Roman arenas. ‘Titus him- 
self took the noblest of the zealots away to march 


156 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


in his triumphal procession through the broad streets 
of Rome. A great arch was built there to com- 
memorate his ghastly triumph, an arch on which 
were carved figures of his young captives carrying 
the sacred vessels of the Temple. 

The remains of that beauteous arch are still 
standing in old Rome. And the ruins of the blood- 
soaked wall still stand in old Jerusalem. Only 
there are no Romans now to look on that arch and 
rejoice in the triumph it commemorates. The Jews 
alone are left, and they come to pray at their old 
wall even to this day. The Romans have gone— 
gone the way of the Egyptians and Assyrians and 
Babylonians and Persians and Greeks. Only the 
Jews still live. 

In the year 70, with Jerusalem destroyed, it 
seemed as if the Strange People, the Jews, had in- 
deed reached their end. 

But it was not their end. 

It was but a new beginning. 


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15.—The Terrible Dispersion of 70 A. D. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE TERRIBLE DISPERSION, AND HOW THE 
RABBIS SAVED THE JEWISH FAITH 


Even with the destruction of Jerusalem the war 
did not end. Little bands of zealots fled to distant 
fortresses and continued to defy Rome. And when 
one after another they found they could not possibly 
hold out, they preferred to destroy themselves rather 
than surrender. 

But even after all open resistance had been stamped 
out, the unrest continued. The conqueror had pro- 
claimed a new law taxing every Jew in the whole 
Empire for the support of the pagan temple of 
Jupiter in Rome. This was supposed to replace the 
old half-shekel which the Jews everywhere had been 
wont to pay toward the support of their Temple in 
Jerusalem; and the attempts to collect the new tax 
fanned the embers of revolt in the people. And 
fanning them year after year, it not was long before 
they burst into high flames again, and once more 
human blood was spilled in the land. 

The immediate cause of the new rebellion was the 
folly of a Roman emperor named Hadrian. He 
set out to win over the Jews by a proposal to build 
a grand new temple in Jerusalem. It was to be a 
temple dedicated, however, not to God but to 
Jupiter! Hadrian in his Gentile mind, imagined the 
Jews would be delighted with any sort of a temple, 


THE TERRIBLE DISPERSION 159 


so long as its location was Mount Moriah in Jeru- 
salem. And he was greatly enraged when he learnt 
that they resented the very idea of his building such 
a sanctuary. He gave up all hope then of winning 
them over with kindness, and resorted to force. He 
determined to put an end to the fanatical faith of 
the Jews, no matter what the cost. He forbade the 
observance of the Sabbath and the rite of circum- 
cision. The study of the Holy Law he made a 
capital crime. 


2 


But it was in vain. All that he accomplished was 
a repetition of what happened three hundred years 
earlier when Antiochus Epiphanes tried in a like 
manner to crush Judaism. The Jews leaped up in 
violent rebellion. 

Their leader this time was a man who took the 
name of Bar Kochba, meaning ‘‘Son of the Star.” 
Evidently he was but another of those individuals 
who were hailed as the Messiahs by the credulous 
people; and his following was a tremendous one. 
Even the great Rabbi Akiba, the most learned man 
of the time, supported him. Coins were struck, 
and on them Bar Kochba was described as ‘‘ Prince 
of Israel.’’ 

Three years the rebellion continued before Rome’s 
greatest general could stamp it out. And then 
there followed massacres even exceeding those 
following the triumph of Titus. Akiba and many 
other leaders were executed; thousands of other 
rebels were sold into slavery. Part of the land was 
distributed as loot to the Roman soldiers and the 


160 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


rest was auctioned off to the highest bidder. Jerusa- 
lem was renamed AXlia Capitolina, and over its gate 
was impaled a swine’s head. All Jews were ab- 
solutely forbidden to enter the place ‘‘for all time 
to come.” 

Only on the ninth day of the month of Ab, the 
anniversary of the destruction of the temple, were 
the Jews permitted to approach Jerusalem. On that 
one day in the year might they come to the wall, 
and leaning against it, weep over its desolation. 
Even then they had to bribe the sentries not to 
molest them while they wept. They had to ‘‘buy 
their tears,” as a great writer of the time puts it. 


3 


And thus, in the year 135, the contest between 
tiny Judea and mighty Rome was ended. The 
Golus, the great and dread Exile, had definitely 
begun. The Jews as a people never again took up 
arms in their own defense. Never in eighteen 
hundred years. They became pacifists, not from 
choice but from necessity. They did not dare again 
to rebel against any foe. They were too few and 
too scattered. 

The scattering of the Jews through foreign lands— 
the Diaspora as it is usually called—had already 
been in process for many centuries before the fall 
of Jerusalem. Perhaps as early as the days of 
Solomon there were little colonies of Hebrew traders 
in strange lands. Certainly there were many after 
the destruction of the Northern Kingdom in 722 
B. c., and still more after the destruction of the 
Southern Kingdom in 586 B. c. Indeed, some 


THE TERRIBLE DISPERSION 161 


scholars say that from that last date on, there were 
always more Jews living outside the borders of 
Palestine than within them. 

In Alexandria, that wondrous city founded in 
Egypt by Alexander the Great, there grew up a 
Jewish community so powerful that it could boast 
complete self-government. It lived in its own 
section of the city, had its own laws and officers, 
and produced its own very distinctive culture. 
One of the greatest writers of the Hellenistic world 
was an Alexandrian Jew named Philo, and his 
work influenced the thought of all early Christian 
scholars. 

There were similar colonies in Rome, Antioch, 
Athens, Babylon—indeed throughout the known 
world of the time. 

But until the fateful year 70, Jerusalem had been 
recognized as the center of all these settlements. 
It was in a way the capital of a vast spiritual em- 
pire. To it the scattered Jews made regular pilgrim- 
age—much as the Mohammedans make pilgrimage 
to Mecca to-day. To it they paid the annual Temple 
tax of half a shekel. And to it they looked for their 
religious laws and regulations. It was a firm and 
solid anchor to the Jews who sailed on pagan seas. 

But with the Fall of Jerusalem all that was ended. 
The anchor had parted, and all the scattered settle- 
ments seemed to be loose and adrift. 


4 


Had the Jews been simply a nation, certainly 
they would not have survived that hour. They 
would have disappeared as did the Phoenicians and 


162 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


the Arameans. And had they been devoted to an 
unchangeable priestly religion, certainly they could 
never again have flourished.. A few devoted souls 
would have huddled around the ruined Temple, 
and there dwindled fast away. 

But the Jews were more than a nation, and their 
religion was more than a priestly cult. Indeed for 
generations before the Destruction, it was neither 
politics nor sacrifice that had been at the heart of 
Jewish life, but a strange thing called the Holy Law. 

The priests, as we have already seen, first came 
into power by inducing the people to impose certain 
laws upon themselves which they called the laws 
of Moses. But so soon as the priests took too great 
advantage of that power and became shamelessly 
corrupt, the people began to grow restless. The 
rebellious spirit of the old Prophets was awakened 
in them, and they began to protest. But they had 
to protest in a queer roundabout fashion. They did 
not dare say openly that the priests were a bad lot 
and ought to be driven from the land, for that 
would have meant flying in the face of the Torah, 
the ‘“‘Law of Moses.” Even by the third century 
before the Destruction, this Torah had become too 
well intrenched even to be covertly challenged. 
So the only thing left was to say that the Torah 
itself was perfect, but that the priests were not 
properly interpreting it. 

In this way, as we have seen, the Pharisees arose— 
the ‘‘Interpreters’? who made it their business to 
study the Law and discover just how far the priests 
might go. 

In the beginning the Pharisees had very little 


THE TERRIBLE DISPERSION 163 


power, but as the years passed, the opposite be- 
came true. Indeed, by the time the Temple fell, 
the priesthood had come to occupy a position some- 
what like that of ‘the royalty in England to-day. 
It was all show. The real power had passed into 
the hands of the Pharisee leaders—the Rabbis, 
the ‘‘Teachers,”’ as they were called. They con- 
trolled the Sanhedrin, or parliament, and they de- 
cided all the religious questions of the day. 


5 


It was that shift in power and leadership from the 
priests to the rabbis that saved Israel after the year 
70. The Destruction of the Temple was a terrible 
blow—but not a mortal one. Although the priests 
and their sacrifices were no more, the Law which 
had ordained them still existed. And because that 
Law was intact—and learned rabbis survived to 
reinterpret it—Israel survived. 

Most people love to read of the mad zealots who 
fought to death against Rome; but in the light of 
history the truly great men of that ghastly hour were 
those rabbis who did not fight. They were the true 
saviors of the people, for they alone saved the faith. 

Their leader was a man named Jochanan ben 
(which means ‘“‘the son of’) Zakkai. He was a 
disciple of a great Pharisee named Hillel, a man in 
whose teaching there seemed to live anew all the 
grand spirit of the Prophets. (Hillel it was who said 
some thirty years before Joshua of Nazareth was 
born, that the whole of the Law was included in 
the one verse, ‘‘Do not unto thy neighbor that which 
is hateful unto thee.) Jochanan himself reminds 


164 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


us a little of the prophet Jeremiah, for he too realized 
the folly of warring with the sword against over- 
whelming odds. When Rome laid siege to Jeru- 
salem he fled from the city to the village of Jabneh 
on the seacoast, and there he took charge of a little 
‘“‘house of learning.’”? He was quite willing to let 
Rome have the capital and all the land—so long as 
he could have his little school in Jabneh. 

And he was right. 

When Jerusalem was at last destroyed, Jabneh 
was prepared to take its place. It became the new 
center of the great Jewish Diaspora, the one light of 
the Golus. There the rabbis gathered at the feet 
of Jochanan ben Zakkai, and there a new Sanhe- 
drin was created. The house of learning and the 
synagogue became what the Temple had been, and 
study and prayer took the place of the old sacrifices. 

The day of the priest was over. The great day of 
the rabbi had come. 


CHAPTER XX 


HOW THE RABBIS BUILT A WALL OF LAW 
AROUND THE JEWS 


There is something intensely dramatic about the 
life and work of those rabbis of the early centuries. 
Usually we think of them as very ancient and feeble 
men with long white beards, and dreamy lack- 
luster eyes. But they were nothing of the sort. 
For the most part they were young or middle-aged 
men, brawny fellows who worked hard all day as 
craftsmen. They did not take to the study of the 
Law because they had nothing else to do with their 
time, for many of them had to earn a livelihood as 
tentmakers, or blacksmiths, or carpenters. They 
went to the house of learning only in their leisure 
hours, and it was to them what the lodge-room and 
the theater and the pool-hall are to the tired work- 
ingmen of our own day. 

But they passed the time in those houses of learn- 
ing in a quite extraordinary way. They talked! 
They argued and discoursed and quibbled at endless 
length. And not only about strictly religious mat- 
ters, but about everything else connected with life. 
They discussed not merely what prayers should be 
recited in the synagogues, and what writings were 
holy enough to be read there, but also why Negroes 
have flat feet, how the stars move in the heavens, 
in what manner to set a broken bone, and just how 
beautiful a girl was Ruth. 


166 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


All their free hours and days and years they spent 
in those houses of learning, gravely worrying about 
everything under the sun. Sport they frowned 
upon, for by very temperament they could not 
enjoy it. So instead of playing in the sun in their 
spare time, instead of running races or throwing 
javelins like the Romans, they withdrew into their 
dark little schools and talked. 

And thus a new type of man became their idol— 
not the great athlete but the great scholar. And a 
new sort of aristocracy arose among them—an aris- 
tocracy not of birth or wealth but of learning. 


2 


Of course, in time this led to a marked evil. The 
learned began to grow proud and snobbish. They 
looked on the am ha-aretz, the ignorant man— 
especially if he spoke with a Galilean accent—as 
little better than a heathen. As early as the time 
of Joshua of Nazareth this snobbishness was already 
rampant among the Pharisee scholars, and that is 
why the young preacher so bitterly denounced them. 

And with the passing of the years that snobbish- 
ness did not seem to decrease. 

Among the learned themselves, however, there 
was complete democracy. Wealth or parentage 
made no difference among them, and legend has 
it that several of the greatest rabbis spent their 
boyhood in peasant huts. A learned man, even 
though he was the son of the lowest woman of the 
streets, was regarded as of nobler rank than an un- 
learned high priest. 

Houses of learning had long existed in most of 


THE REIGN OF THE RABBIS 167 


the large Jewish settlements, and only the fame of 
Jochanan ben Zakkai made the one in Jabneh chief 
among them after the Destruction. Naturally 
the most brilliant students went there to study under 
Jochanan and thus made it possible for the Great 
Sanhedrin of seventy-one scholars to reorganize itself 
there. 

But during the persecutions under Hadrian, when 
all study was forbidden, Jabneh lost its leadership. 
That, however, did not end the work that had be- 
gun there. Though all study of the law was pro- 
hibited on pain of death, study of it nevertheless con- 
tinued. Rabbis were murdered day after day—but 
with their last breaths they appointed their succes- 
sors. And these successors fled to the north of Pales-— 
tine, to Galilee, where the Roman soldiers could not 
so easily catch them. And there in the city of Usha 
they organized a new academy and a new Sanhedrin. 

The center of Jewish learning, however, did not 
long remain in Usha. It moved regularly to what- 
ever town happened to be the home of the next in 
the line of the great scholars. The brightest pupils 
flocked there from all ends of the Diaspora; and there 
the Sanhedrin had to be set up anew. From Usha 
the center shifted to Shefaram; from Shefaram to 
Beth Shearim; from Beth Shearim to Sepphoris; 
from Sepphoris to Tiberius; and at last from Tibe- 
rius right out of Palestine into Babylonia. . . 


3 


It was while the center was in Sepphoris that the 
learned Rabbi Judah compiled what was called the 
Mishna, the ‘‘ Repetition.”’ 


168 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


This Mishna is a work in six volumes, and was 
intended to serve merely as a text-book of rabbinic 
law. The old legislation in the first five books in the 
Bible, the Torah, was no longer suited to the changed 
circumstances of the people. The Jews in the year 
200 a. p. had outgrown it almost as much as we in 
modern times have outgrown the simple laws of 
the Middle Ages. Steadily the Jews had been out- 
erowing their old legislation, and just as steadily 
they had been re-interpreting and adjusting it. 
They had never conceded the old laws were wrong 
and should be forgotten, but merely that they 
needed a little ‘‘touching up.” So all those years 
the scholars had been touching them up. 

Thus did the Oral Law originate—the law handed 
down from teacher to disciple by word of mouth. 

But a new difficulty arose. No two great teachers 
taught exactly the same Oral Law, and when the 
disciples from different houses of learning came 
together, often there were almost violent disagree- 
ments. One said, ‘‘My master taught thus and 
thus,’”? and another declared, ‘‘But my master 
taught so and so.” For that reason several great 
rabbis at different times tried to compile huge note- 
books for the use of students everywhere. 

On the basis of those earlier notebooks, Rabbi 
Judah some time before the year 200 compiled his 
Mishna. In it he gathered together about four 
thousand legal decisions (the Torah contained only 
six hundred and thirteen!) and these he divided into 
different groups and sections. It was not supposed 
to be a final code of law. It was merely another of 
those notebooks. It did not say ‘‘thus and thus 


aR 
If 
wf 
=] 


SEPPUORs 


BSW fy 
16.—Where the Rabbis Fled 


170 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


is the law on this question,’’ but usually gave the 
varying opinions of the leading rabbis of the past, 
together with Rabbi Judah’s own opinions. 

It was not long, however, before Rabbi Judah’s 
pronouncements quoted in the Mishna came to be 
looked upon as absolutely authoritative. The pass- 
ing suggestions and hesitant opinions of a learned 
but still imperfect mind, came to be regarded in 
a little while as divine commands. 


+ 


It is not difficult to explain why the Mishna so 
soon became authoritative. It was probably due to 
the bewildering conditions under which the Jews 
lived in those centuries. Their country and their 
Temple, the things that once had united them, were 
gone. The Law was all that was left. And just 
then the preachers of the new religion called Christi- 
anity, were bitterly attacking that Law. They were 
saying it was an evil thing, for it kept the Jews from 
mingling with the rest of the world. 

That was why the pious among the Jews so readily 
accepted Rabbi Judah’s Mishna. It served as a 
direct rebuke to those Christian preachers. It 
showed the world that far from minimizing the Law, 
faithful Jews intended to magnify it. Tenfold, a 
hundredfold, they intended to magnify it... . And 
do so they would just because it kept them apart 
from the rest of the world. ... | 

For the Jews could now see how the pagan world 
lived, and what manner of gods it worshiped. They 
could see the vice in the homes of the Romans, and 
the bestiality in their temples. They could see all 


THE REIGN OF THE RABBIS 171 


the moral leprosy that was eating into the heart of 
the Empire and bringing it fast to its doom. 

That explains why the Jews desired only to 
keep away from the goyim, to avoid them as they 
would loathsome lepers. Ever higher they built the 
wall of Law around themselves, barricading them- 
selves on all sides. The simple command not to eat 
meat with non-Jews, was now extended to forbid 
them from eating anything with them. Even the 
bread prepared by non-Jews was considered ‘‘un- 
clean.” 


5 


Some people swing back and forth between in- 
credulity and contempt when they read certain of 
the laws in the Mishna. They find it hard to believe 
that the rabbis who passed them could possibly 
have been sane. But they were very sane, those 
rabbis. They saw how near their people were 
to death, and they cast all scruples to the wind. 
Panic-stricken they clutched at every imaginable 
regulation that might keep Israel alive. They were 
like men who pile up boulders and bricks and even 
pebbles in frantic effort to build a dyke against a 
rapidly encroaching sea. 

Curiously, the laws developed and accepted by 
those rabbis, dealt with and regulated not only the 
life of their own time; even more minutely did they 
deal with and re-order the chapters of Jewish life 
that had passed into history. At endless length 
they prescribed just how the ancient sacrifices should 
be offered, and how the tithes should be paid to the 
long-deposed priests. Perhaps three-quarters of the 


172 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Mishna deals thus with a ritual that was utterly 
destroyed a hundred and thirty years before the 
Mishna was compiled. 

There was a reason. The rabbis believed that all 
that past life would be relived again in the future. 
The wild dream of the coming of the Messiah was 
still alive in their hearts. Despite all the evil that 
had come to them—rather, on account of all that 
evil—they still hoped for the Great Day of Redemp- 
tion. Only now they no longer dreamed, as did the 
old prophets, of redemption for all mankind. No, 
now the dream was of redemption for themselves 
alone. The iron of persecution had gone too far into 
their souls for the Jews still to dream of saving the 
world. They must have hated and loathed the 
world. All they gave thought to, at any rate, was 
their own sorry selves—their desolated land, their 
ruined Temple, their scattered and broken nation. 

It was not for lack of something better to do that 
the rabbis developed their innumerable laws; nor 
was it out of stupidity that the disciples accepted 
them. It was out of sheer need—fearful, desperate 
need. 

Israel was being drowned in the sea of paganism. 
And the Law alone could stem and hold back the 
tide. 


CHAPTER XXI 
THE MAKING OF THE TALMUD 


Another century dragged by, and life for the Jews 
grew to be no longer bearable in Palestine. The 
Christians had become all powerful in the land, and 
through their influence at Rome they caused the 
Jews to be plagued most cruelly. The Emperor 
Constantine himself became a Christian, and harsh 


Tae Carisrian Crhurcdt 


\i TERR AT 
/ / SEP EX 


an 


17.—The Church after Paul Died 


indeed were the laws he passed against those who 
clung to the older faiths. 

The Jews therefore began to flee to other lands. 
Chiefly they fled to the East, to Babylonia, which 
was outside the empire of Rome. The vast Jewish 
community which had flourished in that land from 
the time of the Exile in 586 B. c., had helped not a 
little in keeping Babylonia free from the Roman 


174 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


yoke. It had sent out regiment after regiment 
to fight off the dread conqueror of the West. And 
as a result it enjoyed almost complete freedom under 
the Parthians who ruled the land. The Jews had 
their synagogues and their primary schools and 
their houses of learning. And they had their own 
leader—Resh Galutha, ‘‘Prince of the Exile,’ he was 
called—who was recognized by the government. 


18.—The Church under Constantine 


Until the Destruction of the Temple the Jews in 
Babylonia had, of course, looked to Palestine as 
their spiritual home. Even for two centuries after 
that calamitous event they still sent their best 
students to the rabbinical academies in Jabneh, 
Sepphoris, and Tiberius. But from the beginning 
of their exile, the Babylonian Jews had rather 
resented the position of leadership which the Pales- 
tinians enjoyed. Later generations of them somehow 
felt that even though they had never gone back to 
the homeland, they were nevertheless as good as, 


THE MAKING OF THE TALMUD 175 


and perhaps even better than, those who had. 
Probably the Babylonian Jews regarded their breth- 
ren in Judea and Galilee much as American Jews 
now regard their brethren in Poland and Russia—as 
a more pious and orthodox, but a far less cultured lot. 


2 


But a time came when it was no longer necessary 
for the Babylonian Jews to look up to their brethren 


19.—Off to Babylonia 


in Palestine. They began to develop great academies 
of their own, and thus attracted the finest Palestinian 
scholars. Just as in our own day the center of Jewish 
life and learning has begun to move from Eastern 
Europe to America, so seventeen hundred years ago 
it began to move from Palestine to Babylonia. 

It moved to Babylonia because of the persecution 
in Palestine; but almost as soon as Babylonia be- 


176 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


came the center, persecutions began there also. 
The fanatical Persians who had been driven from 
power by the Parthians, succeeded in the year 226 
in regaining that power. And immediately the 
Jews began to suffer. Those Persians, in the first 
flush of their triumph, started to celebrate by but- 
chering all whom they considered ‘foreigners.’ 

The Persians were fire-worshipers, and forbade 
the burning of the lights during their ‘“‘Season of 
Mourning” each winter. Naturally that prohibi- 
tion brought the Jews great distress, for their Mishna 
commanded that lights be burned in the Jewish 
homes every Sabbath Eve, and all week long during 
the mid-winter Festival of Chanukah. And the 
keeping of these Mishnaic Laws caused so many 
riots and massacres, that the new rabbis had to 
advise their followers to hide their lights during the 
winter months. Perhaps the peculiar custom still 
observed among Jewish housewives, of hiding the 
Sabbath lights with their hands when they bless 
them, is a relic of -those fearful years when the 
Persians, frenzied by the taste of triumph, massacred 
the Jews for desecrating their ‘‘Season of Mourn- 
ing.” 

Of course, compared with the horrors which Jews 
were suffering in Palestine and the rest of the 
Roman Empire, these massacres in Babylonia were 
hardly deserving of mention. I have spoken of them 
only to show how they influenced the rabbis of the 
time to modify the Mishnaic laws slightly. Such 
modifications were being made constantly, as day 
by day new problems arose. And naturally that 
meant in time the need for a new notebook—one 


THE MAKING OF THE TALMUD 177 


far completer and more up-to-date than the Mishna. 

And when that new notebook was compiled (it 
was a little before the year 500 A. D.) it was called 
the Talmud, the ‘‘Teaching.”’ 


3 


There are two Talmuds: one that was developed 
by the rabbis who struggled on in Palestine, and 
the other developed by those who flourished in 
Babylonia. Much of the Palestinian Talmud has 
long been lost, but the fragments that still exist 
make it obvious that it was far the inferior work. 
So when we speak of the Talmud we usually mean 
the one produced in Babylonia. 

The Talmud is not a book; rather it is a vast, 
rambling, loose-jointed encyclopedia. It is a great 
wilderness of words in which can be read the whole 
history of the Jewish mind during many centuries. 
Everything the Jew thought about anything— 
religion, philosophy, astronomy, art, law, biology, 
history, botany, medicine, politics—is included in 
that one great work. 

Probably it set out to be merely another and larger 
Mishna—a sixty-three volume index to the in- 
numerable new laws that had been proposed, dis- 
cussed, and accepted after Rabbi Judah finished 
his modest six-volume index. But before it was 
complete it became very much more. It gave not 
merely the laws, but also great chunks of the ram- 
bling discussion that preceded the acceptance of those 
laws. The Mishna was a little like a well-swept 
lumber yard in which trimmed logs had been neatly 
arranged in six great stacks. But the Talmud was 


178 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


more like a clearing in which whole trees with all 
their branches and foliage, their nettles and ivy- 
growths, had been piled up in sixty-three wild and 
sprawling heaps. If there was any order at all in 
the whole big area, it was because down at the 
bottom of each of the heaps lay some of the trimmed 
logs of the Mishna. 


4 


There was a reason for the unkempt way in which 
the trees had been left lying around in the Talmudic 
clearing. In Rabbi Judah’s day the learned men 
in Israel had been confident that the trimmed logs 
alone would suffice to keep the fires of their re- 
ligion burning, and so they had not been afraid to 
lop off the branches and throw them away. But 
that confidence was largely gone three hundred 
years later in Babylonia. The new rabbis had seen 
how quickly these fires could burn low in the fierce 
wind of persecution, and they were afraid to throw 
away even the least scrap of their fuel. 

How those rabbis ever had the patience to as- 
semble all those mountains of words, is bewildering 
indeed. It all seems to have been done under the 
supervision of two scholars named Rab Ashe and 
Rabina; but any number of other scholars must have 
assisted them. In our printed editions the Talmud 
fills almost six thousand pages! The bare task of 
gathering the material and writing it down must 
have been a stupendous one. 

But somehow it was done, and with it another 
compromise was effected between the dreams of the 
prophets and the common sense of the priests. 


THE MAKING OF THE TALMUD — 179 


For though these rabbis had set out as heroic pro- 
testants against the priests, they had after all these 
centuries become very like priests themselves. 
Their thought had come to run in what are essen- 
tially priestly grooves. Laws, little rules and regula- 
tions, had become everything to them. 

Perhaps it was necessary for this to happen if 
the Jews were to continue as a separate people. 
The dreams of the prophets may have given the Jews a 
reason for liuing—but it was the little laws of the 
priest-rabbis that kept the Jews alive. 

Naturally, there was great risk that those little 
laws might smother the very dreams they were 
supposed to keep aflame—that in the strain of 
just keeping alive, the Jews might forget all good 
reason for living. And that danger became very 
teal as the years passed by. 

Indeed, half of the rest of this story of the Jews 
is Just the story of the struggle against that danger. 


Hellenism Grows 
g 


ANTIOCHUS tries to end JuDAIsA 
ics MACCABE AN REVOLT 
Judea 15 Free 


JOHN tyneanus forcibly converls Lvonitrs 
Pharisees v5. Staducees 


«3 ROMANS CAPTURE JERUSALEM 
Wild flunger for the Ness ith 


JUST VAMOR BNAEZ ARs en 
DAUL <— Beqining of GHRISTIANITY 


DESTRUCTION OF Oe 


SADE N 


isz-195 Bar Kocnsa rebellion \y 
0 


PUBBINICAL Academies pert Se G >, 
GALILEE 


‘shpna Compe led 
RABBINICAL Academies movedto 


DABYLONIA 
- The Wall of Law 2 Buz/7 


JUtws Ff persecuted 
by PERSIANS 


.-.JtWws” persecuted 
by CHRISTIANS 


_Aalestiniar Talmud compiled 
Chart C. The Adventures of the Jews, Part III 


CHAPTER XXIT 
THE CONTENTS OF THE TALMUD 


So little is the Talmud known by most people, 
and so much nonsense is therefore uttered about it, 
that at least one more chapter ought to be devoted 
to it here. 

Perhaps a passage or two taken from the work 
itself will throw most light on its character. For 
instance, here is a bit picked almost at random from 
the volume on the Sabbath laws: 

A commandment in the Torah declares: ‘‘ Ye 
shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations 
upon the Sabbath day.”’ Now for centuries this was 
understood and followed literally, and probably 
the Jews all sat in the cold and dark from sunset 
on Friday to sunset on Saturday. But then came 
the early Pharisees with one of their new interpre- 
tations. They said it was perfectly proper—and 
indeed legally necessary—to have lights on the 
Sabbath, so long as they were kindled before the 
Sabbath began. But those lights must not be 
touched again until after the Sabbath closed, other- 
wise the commandment would be transgressed. And 
thereafter, all sorts of new little regulations had to 
be made to guard the people against accidentally 
touching those lights. 

For instance, the Mishna contains the regulation 
that ‘‘one shall not read by the lamplight,’’— 


182 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


presumably because one might be tempted to snuff 
the wick if the flame burnt low. In the Gemara, 
which is the Talmudic law based on the Mishna, 
this regulation is discussed at great length. 

But let me quote for a moment—though with 
many explanatory insertions, for the Talmud is 
almost unreadably concise: 

‘Rabbah (a Babylonian scholar) said (that one 
should not read by the lamp) even if it be placed 
(far out of reach—say,) the height from the ground 
of two men, or two stories, or even on top of ten 
houses, one above the other. 

“(That is) ‘one may not read.’ But it does not 
say two may not read together, (for then one can 
guard the other against snuffing the wick). Against 
this supposition, however, there is a tradition that 
‘neither one nor two together’ (may read). 

“Said Rabbi Elazar: ‘There is no contradiction 
here. The Mishna allows (two people to read to- 
gether) so long as they read the same subject. But 
the tradition (forbids it only if) they are reading 
different subjects.’ a 

And in that manner the one alge is continued 
on and on. 

One rabbi declares that a sa i teacher may 
read by the lamplight, for such a person would 
hardly be so careless as to snuff the wick. To which 
someone answers that Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha, 
who was a great person indeed, once read on Friday 
night and actually caught himself in the act of snuff- 
ing the wick. As proof of this fact, Rabbi Ishmael’s 
diary is quoted, for there he confessed the crime and 
vowed to bring a fat sin-offering to the Temple the 


THE CONTENTS OF THE TALMUD 183 


moment it was rebuilt. (No doubt that vow was 
made in all earnestness. The coming of the Messiah 
and the rebuilding of the Temple were still momen- 
tarily expected!) But some one else counters that 
the case of Rabbi Ishmael is not a fair one, for though 
that scholar was great at teaching laws, he was 
notoriously lax in observing them! 

Next the question arises as to whether a servant 
may examine the cups and dishes by the Sabbath 
lamplight, to see if they are clean. Here too there 
is a dispute. One rabbi says yes and another says 
no. Then a third tries to compromise by saying 
that a regular servant may not examine the dishes, 
for he, in his eagerness to hold his job, might be 
tempted to snuff the wick in order to see better. 
But a servant called in merely for the day, may ex- 
amine the dishes, for he would probably not care 
whether they were clean or not, and therefore would 
not dream of snuffing the wick. That compromise, 
however, is not found acceptable, and a fourth rabbi 
suggests that even a regular servant may examine 
the dishes by the Sabbath lamp so long as it burns 
naphtha and not oil. For naphtha smells badly and 
the fellow would hardly be tempted to come too near 
it. And than a fifth rabbi offers still another sug- 
gestion. ... 

And so it goes on... . 


2 


This example is not at all extreme. Passages 
might be cited from the Talmud which would seem 
infinitely more ridiculous. There is, for instance, 
a thrilling debate on whether an egg laid on the 


184 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Sabbath may be eaten by a Jew, since the hen 
probably broke the Sabbath rest in laying it! 

Into every line of the Biblical law, into every 
word, every letter, even every part of a letter, some 
strange and far-fetched meaning was read by the 
Talmud-makers. The priestly law declared that in 
sacrificing a kid on the Temple altar it may not be 
boiled in its own mother’s milk. Probably the pas- 
sing of that law was due to the superstitious dread 
that the udders of the mother animal would dry up 
if such an act were committed. (There are savage 
tribes in Africa to-day whose diet is still regulated 
by that dread.) But the rabbis did not dream of 
such an explanation. No, they believed the law 
was of divine origin and had some divine though 
mysterious reason back of it. And they elaborated 
it so that it forbade the mixing of any meat and 
any milk (or butter, or cheese) in any Jewish house- 
hold. What was more, even the plates used for meat 
might not be mixed with plates used for milk, and the 
water and cloths used for cleansing the meat plates 
might not be also used for cleasing the milk plates! 

Nor was that the end of the matter, for the length 
of time one should wait after eating meat before 
being allowed to drink milk—and vice versa—had 
to be thoroughly discussed and determined! 


3 


But it is important to remember that such little 
laws, irrational as they may seem to us, nevertheless 
all had a purpose. That purpose, however, was not, 
as some people nowadays imagine—to preserve the 
physical health of the Jews. (Whatever hygienic 


ee 


THE CONTENTS OF THE TALMUD 185 


value there may have been in the laws, was altogether 
accidental.) No, their purpose was the preservation 
of the spiritual health of the Jews. They helped to 
wall in the Jew. They were part of the impregnable 
dyke raised by him against the non-Jewish tide. 

Moreover, it is also important to realize that not 
all the laws in the Talmud were of so narrowly 
ritualistic a sort. Many of them were of a high 
ethical nature. The Jews had gone far since the 
days when the laws in the Torah had been written. 
Their whole outlook on life had grown less primitive. 
As a natural result, their laws had to be changed so 
that they were less primitive too. The law code is the 
clock that tells what time it is in the civilization of 
a people; and in the Talmud we see that the hands of 
the clock had moved a great ways since the time of 
Deuteronomy. Old laws had been tempered, modi- 
fied, and robbed of their cruelty. For instance, the 
barbaric command, ‘‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth 
for a tooth,” had by re-interpretation come to mean 
that the assailant must pay for his crime not with 
his own eye or tooth, but with a heavy fine fixed 
by law. Provision was made to administer an 
extreme penalty like flogging in a humane manner 
unknown to European law courts only a century 
ago. And capital punishment was made practically 
illegal. A court that had pronounced one sentence 
of death in seventy years deserved, it was declared, 
to be called a ‘“‘court of murderers! ”’ 


t 


It is altogether vain to try to pass judgment on the 
Talmud, to try to declare whether it is good or bad, 


186 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


wise or foolish. It is like life—a higgledy-piggledy 
mingling of both good and bad, of both wisdom and 
folly. For it came directly out of life, directly out 
of the hateful, exciting, hopeful, despairing, heroic 
life of the Jewish people. It is rather like a moving- 
picture film that has been mutilated and broken 
in ten thousand places and then has been blindly 
patched together again. It reveals everything that 
came to hurt and heal the Jews in a thousand years 
of incessant hurt and healing. And so it contains 
very nearly everything. 

There are in it myths and vagaries, idiotic su- 
perstitions and unhappy thoughts, things that are 
not merely irrational but .sometimes even quite 
offensive. But there is also much profound wisdom 
buried in it, and much lofty and generous thinking. 
Not all the rabbis were bitter and hateful—though, 
Heaven knows, they all had reason enough to be. 
And not all of them were small-minded and bigoted. 
Indeed, a strain of almost prophetic nobility runs 
through much of the Talmud, and a clear note of 
protest against the clannishness choking the people 
behind the dyke. 

For instance: ‘‘All men who do not worship idols 
may be called Jews.’ Or again: ‘All who accept 
merely the Ten Commandments may be considered 
as though accepting the whole of the Law.” Or 
still again: ‘‘The good men of all the Gentile races 
will inherit the World to Come.” 

Or in another vein: ‘‘Be thou the cursed, not he 
who curses.”’? ‘‘Even the birds in the air despise 
the miser.”’ ‘‘Honor the sons of the poor, for it 
is they who advance science.” ‘‘Charity saves one 


THE CONTENTS OF THE TALMUD 187 


from death.” ‘‘When the thief cannot steal he 
thinks himself an honest man.”’ ‘‘The soldiers fight 
and the kings are called the heroes.”’ ‘‘When the 
ox is down, many are the butchers.”’ ‘‘The passions 
are not all evil, for were it not for them, no one 
would build a house, marry a wife, beget children, 
or do any work.” ‘Drink not, and thou wilt not 
sin.” ‘‘Even if the bull have his head deep in his 
trough, hasten upon the roof, and drag up the lad- 
der after thee.’ ‘‘Commit a sin twice, and thou 
wilt think it quite allowable.” ... 

All the rest of this book could easily be filled with 
just such bits of Talmudic wisdom and irony and 
high prophetic preachment. Not all of the volu- 
minous work is given over to dry legal discussion. 
Indeed fully a third of it consists of clever fables and 
quaint legends and amusing proverbs. Granted 
there is much chaff in the work, there are also ker- 
nels of richest wheat. 

And the fact that in bulk the chaff far exceeds 
the wheat, should not be at all surprising. After 
all, the Talmud is the product of an age when a 
peculiar type of mind alone could thrive. Israel 
was exhausted. The little dormouse in the cage of 
mad lions seemed to be piteously breathing its 
last feeble breath. It was too broken, too clawed 
and mauled and wet with its own blood, to arise 
and ery with the might of the prophets. It was too 
near death to worry about why it should go on living; 
it merely wanted to know how. 

And the how it could learn only from the mouths 
of the new priests, the rabbis. The how it could 
discover only in such a work as the Talmud. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


HOW MOHAMMED BUILT A NEW RELIGION 
AROUND THE JEWISH IDEA OF GOD 


When the Jews fled from Palestine their whole 
aim was to get as far as possible away from the 
talons of Christian Rome. Many of them fled to 
Babylonia, as we have already seen. Some ran 
off to Gaul and the Teutonic lands, because the 
people there were still barbarians, and had not yet 
learnt the Christian hatred of Jews. Others fled 
to India, and perhaps to China. And still others 
retreated into the heart of Arabia, that barren land 
from which their own ancestors had escaped more 
than a thousand years earlier. 

The fate that befell those Jews who fled to Arabia 
is In certain ways much like that which befell their 
brethren in all the rest of the Diaspora. Outwardly 
they became just like the people among whom they 
settled. They turned nomad, and formed them- 
selves into warring desert tribes. In a little while 
sheiks of their own led them in battle, and fortresses 
of their own served them in retreat. Poets of their 
own wrote them songs in Arabic, and minstrels of their 
own sang to them. They took Arab names and wore 
Arab garb. Just as certain butterflies protect them- 
selves by folding their wings so that they look ex- 
actly like the leaves of the trees among which they 
flit—‘‘ protective coloration”? the scientists call it— 


MOHAMMEDANISM IS BORN 189 


so these Jews preserved themselves by looking and 
speaking and acting exactly like the people among 
whom they dwelt. 

Inwardly, however, they persisted in remaining 
a separate folk. They cherished the Bible—that 
was why their Arab neighbors called them AAl ul 
Kitab, the ‘‘People of the Book’’—and they kept 
what rabbinic laws they knew. Earnestly they tried 
to remain faithful to their One True God. 


2 


With the passing of the years that inward differ- 
ence began to be copied by some of the Arabs. 
Their own desert religion was a low form of idolatry 
rather like that which the ancestors of the Jews had 
believed in before they struck out for the Fertile 
Crescent. Those Arabs had some three hundred 
little gods to worship, and one big one. (The idol 
of the big one was a mysterious black stone called 
the Kaaba, which rested in a shrine in the town of 
Mecea and attracted pilgrims from all corners of 
Arabia.) So it was not difficult for the Jews to make 
converts among the more intelligent of the Arabs. 
Indeed, we are told that whole tribes came over in 
a body into the Jewish fold, and that a smattering 
of Judaism was known throughout the Arab settle- 
ments. 


3 


Now in the town of Mecca there lived an Arab mer- 
chant named Mohammed, a strange black-bearded 
fellow given to epileptic fits, who began to tell people 
that he had been sent to preach a new religion. 


190 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


That religion turned out to be in many respects 
remarkably like Judaism, for it proclaimed the 
existence of but One God, and taught that the mem- 
ory of all the great Jewish leaders from Abraham 
to. Jesus of Nazareth should be revered. Just 
where Mohammed had chanced upon this or that 
particular element of his new faith we do not know. 
Probably it was in the many market places in Arabia 
and Syria to which he had journeyed as a trader. 

Evidently Mohammed talked with intense con- 
viction of his new faith, for soon he won over cer- 
tain of his relatives and friends. Indeed his follow- 
ing grew so large that the leading citizens of Mecca 
began to get worried. This new-fangled religion 
with its One God threatened to destroy the supreme 
position of their city as possessor of that great idol, 
the Kaaba. So they plotted to murder Mohammed, 
and he had to flee to the rival town of Medina 
to escape them. Now, in and around Medina there 
lived several tribes of Jews, and for that reason the 
populace there was better able to understand Mo- 
hammed’s new religion. For years previously 
they had been hearing something like his ideas 
from the mouths of the Jews in their midst. 

When Mohammed fled to Medina—it was in the 
year 622—one of his dearest desires was to make 
followers of the Jews there. With that end in view 
he eagerly took over many of their customs—just 
as Paul had taken over many of the customs of the 
pagans whom he tried to win for Christianity. Thus 
Mohammed accepted the Jewish Day of Atonement 
as a fast day, and ordered his followers to turn 
their faces toward Jerusalem when they prayed. He 


-MOHAMMEDANISM IS BORN 191 


made friends of the rabbis in Medina, and not being 
able to read or write, he employed a Jew as his scribe. 


The Jews showed some interest at first in the 
movement, for Mohammed claimed he had been 
sent by their God, and they thought he might be 


192 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


the Messiah. (Oh yes, the Jews were still eagerly 
awaiting the coming of the Messiah!) But when 
they came to know Mohammed better and found 
out how ignorant he was, and how much fonder he 
seemed of pretty women than of what the Jews 
considered godly ways, they refused to have any- 
thing more to do with him. Their minstrels ridi- 
culed him in sarcastic poems, and tried to make 
him the laughing-stock of Medina. 

The result was that as soon as enough Arabs 
had gathered under his banner, Mohammed turned 
on the Jews and butchered them without mercy. 
He had made up his mind that the stubborn ‘‘ People 
of the Book” could not possibly be converted, and 
after decimating their ranks, he turned back to the 
more promising task of converting the rest of his 
own brethren. Particularly he wanted to win over 
his blood kin in the stronghold of the old Kaaba 
worship. With that end in view, he ordered his 
followers to turn their faces toward Mecca and no 
longer toward Jerusalem when they prayed. (Mo- 
hammed, you see, was quite a shrewd man.) Also 
he changed the time of the annual feast to the an- 
cient Arabic season of Ramadhan instead of the 
Jewish Day of Atonement. (Yes, Mohammed was 
a very shrewd man... .) 


4 


And in time he won over his brethren not merely 
in Mecca but in all the rest of Arabia also. The 
triumph was not the product of gentle preaching, 
however, but of bloody persecution. Mohammed 
issued a declaration of Holy War against all who re- 


MOHAMMEDANISM IS BORN 193 


fused to accept his faith. He told his followers that 
the surest way for them to enter Heaven was by 
dying, sword in hand, in the act of waging that 
“Holy War.” And his followers believed him. 

It would be foolish to revile Mohammed’s memory 
for adopting this programme. It must be remem- 
bered that after all he belonged to a people and a 
time still largely barbaric. Indeed, when one con- 


Me 


siders from what low spiritual ancestry and en- 
vironment this Mohammed sprang, one cannot but 
acknowledge him, despite all his vices, a true genius 
and a stupendously great man. 

But though good temper counsels us to spare 
Mohammed our ugly words, we cannot help de- 
ploring the evil he set on foot. Though he himself 
died, his doctrine lived on after him. Always thirsty 
for war and blood, the Arabs now suddenly found 
themselves with a holy excuse for slaking that thirst. 
To fight was now the godliest work they could en- 
gage In. 


194 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


So they fought. Against the whole world they 
fought, for they were determined to win it all for 
their One God, Allah, and for his One Prophet, 
Mohammed. And they almost succeeded. 


5 


The tale of the great Mohammedan Conquests 
is one that cannot be told here. It is a bewildering, 
almost an incredible story. Twenty-five years after 
Mohammed died, his wild Arab followers were mas- 
ters of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Babylonia, and Per- 
sia. Another half-century, and all the northern coast 
of Africa and almost all of Spain had been added to 
their empire. Another decade saw them marching 
up into France. All the Christian world trembled 
as the terrible Arabs came sweeping on. 

And thus a new chapter began in the history of 
the Jews. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
THE REVOLT AGAINST THE TALMUD 


From the fifth to the seventh century the Jews 
were at rest in hardly a land in the world. In 
Christian countries—especially in Spain—they were 
hounded out of town after town, or were penned 
in like lepers in a single foul little alley. Christian 
kings and noblemen robbed them, Christian bishops 
wrote books against them, and Christian ruffians 
murdered them. | 

Conditions in Babylonia or Persia were not much 
better. In those countries, also, the Jews were 
harried and massacred. One ‘“‘Prince of the Exile”’ 
was hung, and another was crucified. 

Early in the eighth century, however, the dawn of 
a new day began to break. As the Mohammedans 
drove the armies of Persia and the Christian nations 
before them, the Jews began slowly to lift them- 
selves out of the dust. For the Mohammedans 
were now strangely tolerant to the Jews. Mohammed 
himself had long been dead, and with him had died 
his chagrin because the ‘‘People of the Book”’ 
would not accept his Koran. His successors only 
knew the Jews as a people who by race and reli- 
gion were somewhat like themselves. Perhaps 
they realized also that without Jews to serve as 
scouts, they themselves would have been almost 
helpless. For they could trust the Jews alone to 


196 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


show them their way about in the vast world beyond 
the Desert. The Jews had traveled everywhere, 
and seemed to know every language. Without 
their aid the Arab invaders would have utterly lost 
their bearings as they swept on through the great 
countries to the right on the east and to the left in 
the Mediterranean basin. 


2 


And under the tolerant rule of the Mohammedans, 
the Jews began to prosper. They who had been 
poor and bedraggled pedlars for centuries, now be- 
came wealthy and powerful traders. They traveled 
everywhere, from England to India, from Bohemia 
to Egypt. 

Their commonest merchandise in those days was 
slaves. On every highroad and on every great river 
and sea, these Jewish traders were to be found with 
their gangs of shackled prisoners in convoy. Slave- 
_ dealing seems irredeemably vile and hateful to us 
to-day, but we must remember here again that 
standards have changed. Only seventy-five years 
ago it was considered altogether proper for the 
very ‘‘best”’ people in our own land to buy and sell 
human beings. In ancient times only the rarest 
of souls—the ‘‘cranks,” as they must have been 
called—saw any great wickedness in such a traffic. 
And in the light of the customs of those times, the 
slave-traffickers were actually doing almost a moral 
work. They alone were keeping the conquering 
armies from slaughtering every one of their defeated 
foes after each battle. 

And with the coming of prosperity to the Jews, 


UNDER THE CRESCENT 197 


came also new life and vigor. Babylonia was still 
the heart of the Diaspora, and the ‘‘Princes of the 
Exile” now became powerful officials at the court of 
Bagdad. The bearer of this title after the Arabs 
conquered the land was actually given a daughter 
of the defeated Persian king as his wife. 

And the rabbinical academies began to flourish 
once more. The president of the leading academy 
in Babylonia was called the Gaon, the “‘ Illustrious 
One,” and to him were submitted the religious 
problems of the Jews throughout the Diaspora. He 
decided what prayers should be recited in the syna- 
gogues, and he licensed the rabbis—they were really 
judges—to preside over the Jewish civil courts. 
For in Babylonia and most other lands the Jews 
still took their disputes and accusations to their own 
Talmudic courts for settlement. 


3 


But despite the prosperity and outer freedom 
that had come to the Jews, their inner life was be- 
coming dry and choked. That high wall, the Tal- 
mud, that had been built to lock out the non- 
Jewish world, served also to lock in the Jewish soul. 
Its frowning shadow was cast over every path in 
Jewish life. It was no longer a means to the end of 
self-preservation; it had become an end in itself. 
It was no longer a thing to live by but to live for— 
yes, and even to die for. The Jews lifted it to a 
place of importance above the very Bible, and they 
studied it far more diligently. They memorized it 
from end to end—every one of its sixty-three enor- 
mous divisions! 


198 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


All the Talmud was accepted literally. From 
end to end it was universally assumed to be a true 
and perfect development of the commandments 
which Moses had taught the Hebrews at the Holy 
Mountain of Yahveh. The new rabbis commented 
on its every line and word, striving to make clear its 
many muddy passages, and succeeding only in 
making them muddier. And on these commentaries, 
later rabbis wrote further commentaries, making the 
already muddy passages still muddier. So they 
went on, pathetically caressing their hoard of laws 
as a miser caresses his coins. The Talmud was no 
longer their servant; they had become its slaves. 

And then came the protest. 

It had been brewing for a long time, but not until 
now had it been able to get itself heeded. The Jews 
had been living in a sort of war-time hysteria during 
all those centuries, and the few protestants that 
spoke out had been given very little sympathy. 
They had been gruffly told to “fall in or get out!” 
And many of them, refusing to “‘fall in,”’ had indeed 
gotten out. 

But the protest had made itself felt nevertheless. 
The stern spirit of the Essene hermits—that spirit 
which had produced John the Baptist and also, in 
a measure, Joshua of Nazareth—still lived in the 
souls of some professing Jews. Prophets still ap- 
peared from time to time in remote corners of the 
Diaspora. Frenzied young Jews: they were, and 
they cried to their brethren to cease entangling 
themselves in all the petty rules of the rabbis, and 
concentrate their thinking on the great commands 
of God. (They were usually the sort of men who 


UNDER THE CRESCENT 199 


objected to slave-dealing and the various other 
“business” activities which the Jews were being 
tempted to take up.) Generation after generation, 
new self-made Messiahs appeared, rising and falling 
like so many flaring rockets. Small Jewish sects 
leapt up and died down again in wild and rampant 
confusion. 

Now, most of these obscure preachers and their 
sects, though traveling along paths quite unin- 
telligible to each other, were headed toward essenti- 
ally one goal. They were striving to get back to 
the basic truths of the ‘‘old-time religion.” They 
were trying with all their might to get back to God. 

That was why they were all opposed to that tre- 
mendous wall of Law which the rabbis had erected. 
They felt it was in their way. It had been built to 
shut in the religion and preserve it, but these preach- 
ers seemed to realize—though ever so vaguely— 
that true religion never could stay shut in. So 
they cried out at the top of their voices for an end 
to the wall. 

But the vast majority of their brethren, entangled 
in their little rules and regulations, deafened as 
it were by the clatter of their meat dishes and milk 
dishes, did not heed that ery. Not until the coming 
of Anan ben David did they heed it... . 


+ 


Anan ben David was a learned Jew of high station 
in Babylonia. Indeed he was the heir of the Prince 
of the Exile. But about the year 762, when it came 
his turn to succeed to that office, the rabbis of the 
day elected his younger brother in his stead. (Prob- 


200 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


ably Anan had already let it be known that he 
belonged to those who were not altogether satisfied 
with the Talmud.) And when Anan found he had 
been cheated out of what he considered his birth- 
right, the commotion raised by him rocked the 
whole Jewish world. 

A new sect, almost a new religion, was founded 
by him. Anan declared war on the Talmudic Law, 
taxing it with being all false and ridiculous. And 
hundreds flocked to support him. They joined 
him on his march to Jerusalem, there to set up what 
they considered a truly Jewish community—one 
governed solely by Biblical Law. 

But it did not take long for the followers of Anan 
to discover how impossible of success was their 
task. The ancient Biblical Law, well enough de- 
veloped for the work it had to do in its own day, 
was not adapted, by itself, to govern a more civilized 
community in a later age. To make it at all ade- 
quate, the Biblical Law had to be completely re- 
vised. Just as the first rabbis, when they rebelled 
against the tyranny of the priests, had to begin 
“interpreting” the Law, so these later rebels found 
that they had to begin ‘“‘interpreting”’ also. In fine, 
the followers of Anan ended by doing just what they 
had set out to undo. 

And that of course meant the beginning of the 
decline and fall. Anan ben David’s sect lived on, 
but its high spirit of protest against legalism sick- 
ened and rapidly died out. The new legalism of its 
own that it developed was in many respects even 
more rigid and unreasonable than that of the Tal- 
mud. The heroic little band of rebels that had 


UNDER THE CRESCENT 201 


set out to cast down the high wall of the rabbis, 
succeeded only in building a higher wall of their 
own. 5; 

But despite this, the movement lived and grew. 
Though its declaration of principles was only a crazy 
quilt of queer doctrines and practices, it continued 
to win converts from among the orthodox Jews. 
Especially was this true in the century after Anan 
died, for then it produced several distinguished 
scholars who tried their best to correct many of 
Anan’s mistakes. 

The movement, which at first had been known as 
Ananism, was now called Karaism, the ‘Religion 
of the Bible.” Unfortunately our sources of in- 
formation are very undependable, for most of our 
reports come to us from the pens of its bitterest 
opponents. At its height Karaism may have been 
a valiant and earnest effort to establish a rather 
generous creed—a Judaism that could accept both 
Jesus and Mohammed as great teachers without 
sacrificing its right to go seeking still greater ones. 

But Karaism quickly toppled from that height. 
It failed, as perhaps every such effort must fail, in 
a world still choked with fears and stupidities. 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE DAWN OF INTELLIGENCE IN BABYLONIA AND 
SPAIN 


But Karaism failed only in spirit. In body it 
lived on and flourished. In the ninth century, 
indeed, it bade fair to become dominant throughout 
the Jewish world. The rabbis of the time were a 
weak and slavish lot. They tried to ignore the 
movement, largely perhaps because they lacked 
spirit enough to wrestle with it. The Karaite 
missionaries based all their work of conversion on 
arguments from the Bible, and the rabbis of the 
day hardly knew the Bible. All they knew was the 
Talmud, and the pathetic trickery, the twisting of 
phrases and wringing of words, by which it had been 
foisted onto the Bible. So for over a century those 
rabbis continued to bury their heads in their dry 
and dusty commentaries, and tried to make them- 
selves believe that nothing was happening. 

But then Saadya came on the scene, a rabbi of a 
new type—alert, intelligent, and unafraid. He was 
born in Egypt, but so great was his learning and 
fame that he was called at the early age of thirty- 
six to be Gaon of the foremost academy in Babylonia. 
Fourteen years later he was already dying, his health 
broken by his intense labors and struggles. Never- 
theless, in those few years of life he managed to 
breathe a new spirit into Jewish learning. 


BABYLONIA 


Jews ruled by 


‘Prince of Lxile 


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ARABIA 


624 Monammrp turns against 


---] MOHAMMEDAN CONQVESTS 


Veurs grow in power 


KHAZARS w 


southern DRwasia converted 
to UvDAIsSm 


Revolt against 
the Talmud--- 


KARAITES 


Grow in power ~~ 


Knazar Kingdom SAADYA 
destroyed Dawn of ...1 (892-942) 


Vilelli perce” 
Chart D. The Adventures of the Jews, Part IV 


204 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


2 


Saadya was a man of amazing sensitiveness to 
the thought of his time. His mind kept in closest 
touch with the movements that were advancing 
in the world, and was not afraid to go out to meet 
them. The Arabs had rediscovered the wisdom of 
the ancient Greeks, and their keen eager intellig- 
ences were drinking freely of that wisdom. By 
contrast, the Karaites had set out to rediscover 
the ancient wisdom of the Jews, but their loose and 
slow intelligences were drinking their own new 
legal brew instead. So Saadya openly took over 
many of the new Arab ideas, and just as openly 
rejected the Karaite ones. 

Saadya, therefore, saved Judaism from wandering 
off into the blind Alley of Karaism, and first set its 
feet on the broad road of Arabie science. From his 
time on, Karaism began to wither away. Though 
members of the sect still live to-day in Turkey and 
Southern Russia, they are few in number and spirit- 
ually not very significant. 

But though Karaism withered so soon, it per- 
formed a great service in its day. It pricked Juda- 
ism out of deep sleep, and set it to thinking and 
moving once more. In a very real sense it had a 
part in producing Saadya, for it was by his writings 
against the sect that he first attracted the attention 
of the Babylonian Jews and wor for himself the 
high office of Gaon. In as real a sense, therefore, 
Karaism opened a new chapter in the intellectual 
life of the Jews—one of the most brilliant chapters 
in all this long story. 


DAWN IN BABYLONIA 205 


Only the first paragraph of that new chapter was 
written in Babylonia. A spirit of intolerance had 
grown up among the Mohammedans there, and 
it became impossible for the Jews to remain in the 
land. Rapidly, therefore, they began to flock along 
the caravan routes westward to Spain, taking with 
them their scholars and their scrolls. The revival 
of Jewish learning which Saadya had started, was 
like the last flare before the guttering-out of a candle- 
flame as far as Babylonia was concerned. Of the 
Gaonim who succeeded Saadya, two were thrown 
into prison by the Mohammedans, and the last was 
executed. 

And with that last Gaon the flame died down 
completely—in Babylonia. 

But a new flame was already alight and burning 
—in Spain. And it was far stronger and brighter 
than any Babylonia ever had known. Jews in 
Spain had possessed wealth and power almost 
from the time, three centuries earlier, when the 
Mohammedan invaders drove the Christians from 
the land. And with the passing of the years, that 
wealth and power had materially increased. Even 
after the Christians, hidden all this time in the 
mountains, began warily to creep down again and 
reoccupy the land, the position of the Jews did not 
greatly change. Those Christians were still too 
uncertain of their strength to dare antagonize the 
powerful friends of the Moors. 

Those were wondrous days for the Jews. They 
wielded influence in every walk of life. Some were 
active in the armies—so active, indeed, that in at 
least one instance, both the Mohammedan and 


206 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Christian generals are said to have declared a truce 
for a day so that Jews on both sides might enjoy 
their Sabbath rest! Others taught in the great 
universities, and managed the royal treasuries. 
They were the leading physicians and bankers and 
merchants and diplomats of the time. 

And that growth of Jewish wealth and influence 
was accompanied by the growth of Jewish literature 
and learning. For the first time since most of the 
Psalms were written in the period of the Maccabees, 
Hebrew poetry began once more to flourish. Much 
of it, of course, was quite inferior stuff, for Hebrew 
had ceased to be a living tongue. Prayers formed 
part of this new poetry—piyyutim they were called— 
which often were so stilted and involved in style that 
perhaps not even their own authors could puzzle 
out their meaning. On the other hand, there were 
hymns and epics, even love-songs and drinking songs, 
of amazing charm and beauty. 

Every educated Spanish Jew at that time seems 
to have tried his hand at poetizing, for it was the 
fashionable thing to do. Letters of friendship, 
books on grammar and astronomy and religion, 
prayers, even business notes, were often written in 
verse. A mere list of the men who distinguished 
themselves in the art would fill the rest of this 
chapter. We will only mention one here, the greatest 
of the age, Judah Halevi. 


3 


Judah Halevi, born in Old Castile in 1086, began 
writing poetry while still a youth. But to us there 
is something almost alarming about that early 


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208 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


poetry of his. It was written in limpid, lovely 
Hebrew; in a measure it had the ring of the ancient 
Psalms. But that was all it had in common with 
the Psalms, for it dealt not with sin and repentance, 
but with passion and love. It sang not of the majesty 
of the Lord, but of the warmth of a maiden’s ca- 
resses. Or else it sang of the fragrant taste of wine, 
and of the wisdom of frivolity and laughter. 

Judah, it seems, was no end of a gay blade in his 
youth; and when his elders rebuked him for it, his 
retort was: 


‘“‘Shall I whose years scarce number twenty-four 
Turn foe to pleasure and drink wine no more?” 


As he grew older, however, his wildness left him. 
He settled down into a sedate physician in the city 
of Toledo, and spent his spare hours writing a 
learned Arabic work on Judaism called ‘‘Al Kha- 
zari.”’ But to the end he remained nevertheless 
the poet: sensitive, ill-at-ease among men, and 
forever dreaming dreams. His craving in early 
youth for an impossibly beautiful maiden became 
later on a yearning for an unspeakably glorious 
Zion. And that yearning gave birth to poem after 
poem of matchless tone and grandeur. Love for 
Jerusalem became his one controlling passion. It 
colored all his thinking, and made him wretched 
in the land of his birth. 


“Tn the East, in the East, is my heart, and I dwell at the end 
of the West; 

How shall I join in your feasting, how shall I share in your 
jest? ” 


DAWN IN BABYLONIA 209 


So did he mourn, and mourning so he died. Even 
though in his last years he did go to Jerusalem, 
still was he unable to join in feast or jest. For the 
Jerusalem he found waiting for him was not the 
Holy City he had imagined. Rather it was a dirty, 
ul-smelling heap of débris wherein Crusader and 
Mohammedan hacked at each other in unholy 
madness. And legend has it that as the despondent 
man stood by the ruined wall and wept, an Arab 
horseman galloping out of the gate, stumbled over 
him, and crushed him to death. .. . 


4 


In Judah Halevi is revealed, perhaps as well as in 
any other man of his time, the new spirit that had 
entered Jewish learning. The Talmud was no longer 
considered the beginning and end of all wisdom; 
nor was the writing of dry and spiritless commen- 
taries still looked on as the only proper pursuit for 
Jewish scholars. 

At last the sun shone once more. At last the 
gloomy shadows cast by the wall of Law, lifted for 
a moment. At last there was Jewish laughter as 
well as Jewish weeping on the earth—real relaxation 
once more. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


THE “GOLDEN AGE” OF JEWISH LEARNING IN 
SPAIN 


It must not be imagined, however, that the 
scholars of this brighter age did not do their share of 
burrowing in the Talmud. They too wrote com- 
mentaries and long-winded interpretations. But 
to their credit be it said, they did other things as 
well. They wrote poetry, as we have already seen; 
and they studied the science of the day. 

The field that seemed to attract and interest them 
most was the science of medicine, and for centuries 
all great sultans and kings had their Jewish physi- 
cians. Even the popes sometimes used them. 

The science of grammar was another favorite 
subject. That study enlisted their zeal because it 
helped them to understand the Bible; and the 
Bible had to be understood if the Karaites were to 
be refuted. As a consequence, there were many 
great Hebrew grammarians during the ‘Golden 
Age” in Spain, most of them supported by wealthy 
patrons in the larger cities. The foremost of them 
all was one, Abraham 7zbn (the Arabic for ben) 
Ezra, who, however, did his best work beyond the 
borders of Spain. He was a man of great wit and 
wisdom and poverty. He was always meeting with 
ill-fortune, and used to say that if he were to turn 
shroud-maker, immediately mankind would cease 


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23.—The Wanderings of Ibn Ezra 


212 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


to die. He was Spanish by birth, but before he died 
he had wandered to Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Baby- 
lonia, Italy, France, and England. In each he stayed 
as long as his welcome or his patience lasted, living 
off the bounty of some patron, lecturing to stu- 
dents, and writing on any one of a dozen or more 
subjects. 

His most important work was a commentary on 
the Bible, and the spirit in which it was written 
may be said to mark the birth of an epoch. For Ibn 
Ezra approached the Scriptures almost with our 
modern critical attitude. He took no traditional 
reading for granted, but tried on the basis of his 
hard and fast rules of grammar to ferret out for 
himself the meaning of each verse. And when he 
came across passages in the Torah, the ‘‘ Five Books 
of Moses,” which flatly contradicted each other, 
he did not do the orthodox thing, and try desperately 
to darn and patch them together. No, instead he 
let them stand side by side in all their glaring con- 
tradiction, and wrote with perhaps a sly wink: 
‘“‘And the wise man will no doubt have his explana- 
tion for this puzzle.” 

Now that was a high and holy act of scientific 
daring. Even though Ibn Ezra did not enlarge 
upon all he suspected, at least he did suspect. He 
may not have said so openly what we to-day no 
longer question—that the ‘‘Five Books of Moses” 
are not really all the work of Moses, but a collection 
of traditions and codes belonging to varied localities 
and ages. But at least he seems to have thought it. 

And the bare harboring of such a thought in that 
early day, marks a tremendous advance. 


es 


HIGH NOON IN SPAIN 213 


2 


Advances were also made by other Jewish scholars 
in that age. As I have already said, Arabs had 
stumbled upon buried scrolls of the ancient Greeks, 
and being a quick and eager lot, they had not rested 
until they had deciphered many of the old writings. 
As a result, a whole vast world of learning was re- 
opened. Mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, med- 
icine, and philosophy began to flourish again for 
the first time in perhaps a dozen centuries. It meant 
the beginning of the end of the Dark Ages. 

Naturally enough, the Jews, who were by long 
training an intellectual folk, eagerly took to this 
new world of wisdom. From Saadya’s time on, 
they investigated its every corner, returning home 
to their own Jewish studies with heads crammed 
full of new ideas. 

And thus, among other things, Jewish philosophy 
was reborn. 


3 


Philosophy is the attempt to discover why things 
have happened or are happening—just as science is 
the attempt to discover how. Jewish philosophy, 
therefore, attempted to discover the real reason why 
Jews believe what they do—why they believe in God 
and the Bible—indeed, why they remain Jews. 

Many Jews of the ‘‘Golden Age” devoted them- 
selves to this study, and curiously enough, for cen- 
turies afterwards even the Christian scholars pored 
over the books written by those Jews. That was 
possible because the books were written in so inclu- 
sive a spirit that often the followers of Christianity 


214 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


could find nothing in them with which to disagree. 
Indeed, one such book called in Latin ‘‘Fons Vite,’ 
the ‘‘ Living Fountain,”’ written by a Jew named Solo- 
mon ibn Gabirol, was always regarded in the Euro- 
pean universities as the work of a Christian scholar 
named Avicebron. The true identity of the author 
was not discovered until about seventy-five years ago! 

Ibn Gabirol reminds one somewhat of Philo, the 
great Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria 
more than a thousand years earlier. Both of them 
were ardent Jews, and yet both exercised their 
greatest influence on the Christian mind. Philo 
helped lay the philosophic foundation for primitive 
Christianity, Just as Ibn Gabirol helped lay it for 
medieval Christianity. 


4 


But the greatest Jewish thinker of this period 
was Moses ben Maimon. He is usually referred to 
as Maimonides, for the Latin suffix ides means 
‘‘son of.’’ (Had he lived in Germany he would have 
been called Maimonsohn, in Poland, Maimonski, 
and in Russia, Maimonovitch.) In his day—the 
second half of the twelfth century—he was the 
leading rabbi in the world. Officially he was merely 
the physician to the Sultan of Egypt; but un- 
officially he was King of the Jews. For Jews every- 
where looked up to him as their supreme authority. 
The misfortune and ill-health that dogged his steps 
all his life, failed to prevent his working on almost 
without interruption. He wrote voluminously on 
any number of subjects: mathematics, astronomy, 
medicine, law, as well as philosophy. 


HIGH NOON IN SPAIN 215 


In particular, he wrote a great book on the Talmud 
—not a mere commentary, but a monumental re- 
arrangement that set all the stray and conflicting 
laws in order. For seven hundred years the scholars 
had crept and clambered in and out and over the 
piles of lumber and underbrush in the Talmudic 
yard; but not until the coming of Maimonides was 
any attempt made to clean up the whole place. 

And when that tremendous task was done, Mai- 
monides undertook another even more difficult. 
He tried to set down in clear and logical fashion 
sound reasons for all the Jewish beliefs. The final 
product was a volume entitled in Hebrew ‘‘ Moreh 
Nevuchim,” the ‘‘Guide for the Perplexed’’—one 
of the most significant books in all of Jewish liter- 
ature. Casting aside the Talmudic arguments, 
which were all based on dogma and authority— 
(‘‘This is so because Rabbi Judah, or Ezra, or Moses, 
or God, said so’’)—he substituted new ones based 
on what he considered pure and scientific reasoning. 

Of course, a great deal of what Maimonides con- 
sidered pure reasoning seems to us decidedly impure. 
But it was utterly impossible for a man in the twelfth 
century to use only common sense and scientific 
truth as the basis for all his arguments. The time 
was not yet ripe for it. 

Yet, as was true of Ibn Ezra’s work, its great 
glory was that at least it made the attempt. 

To try to show that science proves what faith 
accepts without proof, is what we call Rationalism. 
Essentially it is of little use, because faith always 
comes out on top. If science will not agree with it, 
then science is doctored so that it shall. As Prof. 


216 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


James Harvey Robinson puts it in his book, ‘‘ Mind 
in the Making”’: if real reasons do not prove the 
dogmas, then ‘‘good”’ reasons are manufactured and 
used. 

But Rationalism nevertheless represents an ad- 
vance over the stupid and unquestioning acceptance 
of dogma. At least it removes the dogmatic shackles 
upon thinking. 

Until the time of Saadya there had been exceed- 
ingly little of such unshackled thinking among the 
Jews. In the years between Saadya and Maimonides 
it flamed with amazing brilliance. And after Mai- 
monides it began to die down once more. 

After Maimonides the ‘‘Golden Age”’ began fast 
to turn to iron. 


a 


CHAPTER XXVII 
TWILIGHT IN THE CHRISTIAN LANDS IN EUROPE 


Very little of the ease and freedom which the 
Jews enjoyed in Mohammedan Spain was shared 
by their brethren in the other lands of Europe. 
Those other lands were Christian, and they boiled 
with bigotry. The rulers themselves were more or 
less tolerant, for they depended upon Jews as their 
financiers. But the lower classes had no use for 
them, and butchered them whenever a righteous 
excuse could be found. . 

And righteous excuses were never wanting. If a 
plague broke out, of course the Jews had poisoned 
the wells. If a war was lost, of course the Jews had 
aided the enemy. Ifa boy mysteriously disappeared, 
of course the Jews had murdered him to procure 
blood for their Passover drink. ... And always 
there was the standing excuse for persecution, that 
the Jews were not Christians... . 

That standing excuse was responsible for the 
ghastliest massacres, especially during and after 
the year 1096. In that year the First Crusade was 
launched, and Europe went utterly out of its senses. 
The thirst for the blood of the Mohammedans was 
whetted first with the blood of Jews. Godfrey de 
Bouillon and many of his fellow Crusaders swore 
holy oaths that they would leave none of the hated 
infidels alive in the land, and although Godfrey was 


218 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


bought off with heavy bribes, the other Crusaders 
almost made their oaths good. 

In Worms, eight hundred Jews—almost all in the 
city—were butchered. Amid jeers the rabbi and 
all his family were buried alive. One young Jewess, 
Minna, daughter of the wealthiest of the martyrs, 
was offered her freedom by friendly noblemen if 
she would but turn Christian. Indignantly she 
refused, and she too was put to death. 

In Mayence, over a thousand Jews were massacred, 
and many were forcibly baptized. Among these 
unwilling converts were a father and two daughters 
who soon after their baptism seem to have gone 
mad with penitence. The father killed the two 
girls in his own house, set fire to it, then set fire to 
the nearby synagogue, and finally threw himself 
into the flames. Almost all the city of Mayence 
was destroyed before that fire could be put out! 

In Cologne, the Jews escaped by the aid of a 
merciful bishop and many of the burghers. After 
three weeks of hiding in the nearby villages, however, 
the mob of Crusaders discovered them and were 
without pity. Many Jews took their own lives, 
drowning themselves in the lakes and bogs rounda- 
about. The pious Samuel ben Yechiel, standing in 
the water and uttering a prayer, slew his own son 
at his side. And as the victim moaned ‘‘ Amen” 
to the old man’s prayer, all those looking on cried, 
‘‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord is One,” and let them- 
selves drown in the waters. ... Three hundred 
Jews trapped in one of the villages, selected five of 
their number to slay the rest and then to slay them- 
selves! 


220 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


So matters went in Regensburg, in Treves, in 
Prague—blood and fire, murder and shame. 

These events all happened while the hordes of 
the First Crusade were marching their bloody way 
through Europe in 1096. And when at last they 
reached Jerusalem and captured it three years later, 
they drove all the Jews into one of the synagogues 
and burnt them alive! 


2 


And then there was the Second Crusade... . 
And*thee (birdies: 


3 


No laughter was left on the lips of the Jews who 
survived. Throughout Germany they went about 
in sackcloth and ashes, mourning for the kedoshim, 
the saints, who had perished. And throughout 
Christendom the Jews turned gray with fear and 
terror. Their only relief was their study; their only 
refuge was their house of learning. But among them 
there was none of that daring which marked the 
study of their brethren who had been reared in 
Spain. Philosophy and science were closed worlds 
to them; only the Talmud was open. 

Moreover, even in their wanderings through the 
wilderness of the Talmud they were cautious and 
timorous. The courageous and independent think- 
ing of an Ibn Ezra or a Maimonides was altogether 
foreign to them. The famous Rashi, their greatest 
writer of commentaries, based his interpretations 
not on the strict laws of grammar, but on the loose 
fancy of tradition. He darned and patched all the 


TWILIGHT IN EUROPE 221 


breaks in the text with the scarlet wool of myth and 
legend. (That is why simple folk among the Jews 
to this day prefer Rashi’s commentary to Ibn Ezra’s.) 
And their most diligent students of the Talmud, 
the French ‘‘Tosafists,’’ made no attempt to over- 
haul the whole work and set it in something like 
order. Rather did they add to its disorder by scrib- 
bling worthless notes on its margins. 

It was for all the world the same as it had been in 
the darkest days in Babylonia. Jews everywhere 
in England, France, and Germany, were in a panic. 
They dared not cast away a single twig of all the un- 
derbrush which their fathers had stored up for them, 
lest the fires of their faith die out for lack of fuel. 

And what was still more tragic, they turned in 
rage on those who dared do otherwise. They bitterly 
attacked Maimonides for presuming to revise all 
the Talmud, and assailed him even more for writing 
his philosophic ‘‘Guide for the Perplexed.’ For 
years they reviled and cursed that free-thinking 
‘“‘Guide,” even going so far as to appeal finally to 
the Catholic Church to have it burned. And it 
was burned. Stupid priests joined with stupefied 
rabbis to destroy the noblest product of the ‘‘Golden 
Age.” 

And as always happens when freedom of thought 
is suppressed, a new interest in magic and mysti- 
cism sprang up. Cabala, ‘Tradition,’ it was called, 
because its secrets were supposed to have been 
handed down from the most ancient times. It 
was a pathetically earnest attempt to get at the 
basic truths about God and the universe. But it 
sought to get at them not by the straight and stony 


222 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


path of reason and science, but through the thick, 
sprawling, tropical forest of imagination and mystery. 
It talked of demons and angels, of strange words 
and incantations, of hoary secrets hidden in un- 
known books, and other such stuff and nonsense. 
The little light there was in it was like the light of 
fireflies skimming over a stagnant pool... . 


f 


Only in the south of France, in Provence, did a 
gleam of reason and freedom still live on. A little 
light from the learning of Moorish Spain had seeped 
in there to dispel the fog. Jews taught in the univer- 
sities of Provence, and served in the courts of the 
barons. One great family of scholars, the Kimchis, 
wrote grammars and dictionaries; and another, the 
Tibbonides, translated Judeo-Arabic works of phi- 
losophy. 

But soon that solitary gleam of light was also 
snuffed out. A new pope, Innocent III, began to 
rule, and seeing the free spirit that reigned in Pro- 
vence, his little soul was dismayed. Provence was 
the seat of a powerful sect of heretical Christians 
called the Albigenses, a sect of rationalists who 
protested courageously against the riot of darkness 
and corruption in the Catholic Church. If the 
truth were fully known, probably it would be 
found that the learned Jews in Provence were in 
large part responsible for the existence of this free- 
thinking sect. The doctrines which the Jews had 
been spreading throughout the land for years could 
not but have helped to undermine the Church’s 
power. 


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JO y3an3sd 3H” 


et ieee ew etic | 
YS ee ~ ai 


224 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


So against both the Albigenses and the Jews this 
pope now directed all his fury. He issued a call 
in the year 1207 for a crusade against them; and a 
fanatical monk named Arnold of Citeaux, led the 
assault. Count Raymond the Good, who had 
always protected the heretics, was dragged naked 
to church, whipped, and forced to swear among other 
things never again to be tolerant to the Jews. The 
beautiful city of Béziers was razed to the ground. 
‘We spared neither dignity, nor sex, nor age,” 
writes the monk, Arnold, to his Holy Father, the 
pope. ‘‘Nearly twenty thousand human beings 
perished by the sword. And after the massacre 
the town was plundered and burnt, and the revenge 
of God seemed to rage over it in a wonderful manner.” 

And so ended the freedom in Provence. 


5 


Next came Spain. A crusade was launched 
against the infidel Moors there, and that same monk, 
Arnold of Citeaux, was again a leading spirit. And 
of course, the Jews suffered. The Christian kings in 
Spain, until now markedly tolerant to the Jews, 
were rapidly taught the error of that course. The 
plight of the Wandering People in Christian Spain 
from then on grew more terrible year by year. 

And the Moors, who were crowded back by the 
crusaders until they held only little Granada in the 
far south of the peninsula, also gave the Jews no 
rest. They had long ago ceased to exhibit the gen- 
erosity which had marked them when in the hey- 
dey of their power. Already in the time of Maimon- 
ides they had become a fanatical lot, and the great 


TWILIGHT IN EUROPE 225 


philosopher had been forced to flee from his birth- 
place while a boy. And with the shrinking of their 
realms, the Moors had grown even more intolerant. 
So now there was no corner left in all Europe for 
the Jews. The last gleam of day was gone. 
It was Night... . 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE TERRIBLE NIGHT OF PERSECUTION 


A slow, senseless, pitiless crucifying of a people— 
that is the whole tale of the night that now fell. 
The Crusades had beaten the Jew to the ground, 
and now for five hundred years Christian serfs and 
priests, Christian kings and popes, took turns in 
kicking his prostrate body. 

Christianity was not to blame for that, but only 
those sorry Christians. They did what they did 
only because they were still brutes—poor, lustful, 
stupid beasts just come up out of savagery. They 
knew no better. 

Even their leaders knew no better. There was 
no conscious lie in their hearts when Christian 
priests declared it was for the sake of the loving 
Jesus that they crushed the skulls of gray-bearded 
old Jews. They really believed it! Of course, we 
know it was not at all for the sake of Jesus that they 
committed those horrors. We know it was simply 
to ease their own savage resentment at the sight of 
strangers in their midst. But they knew nothing of 
the sort. If they lied at all, it was only to them- 
selves. 

It is not difficult to see why the Jew was so stead- 
ily preyed upon. In the eyes of the provincial- 
minded Christians of medizval Europe, the Jew was 
guilty of that most flagrant of all crimes: he was 


THE NIGHT - 227 


different. And what was even worse, he seemed to 
want to be different. No matter what pressure was 
brought to bear on him, the Jew obstinately refused 
to conform. 

Now differentness is to stupid man what a red 
rag is to a bull! Always he charges down on it 
madly, determined to tear it to shreds. And if he 
cannot tear and destroy it, he tries at least to stamp 
it in the dust. For by so doing he assures his own 
wretched little self that the person flaunting that 
differentness is far, far inferior. 

But the trouble with the Jew was that though he 
was different, he yet did not admit himself—nor seem 
—inferior. At least, not sufficiently so. And there- 
fore the whole aim of the Christian world focused 
itself on the task of finding ways and means of de- 
meaning the Jew more thoroughly. 

That was the real intent back of the invention 
of the Jew-badge. A law was passed in 1215 by the 
Catholic Church forbidding all Jews on pain of 
death to appear on the streets without a colored 
badge of a certain shape sewn to their clothing. 
It was meant to be a brand of shame, an ever- 
present, visible sign of inferiority. 


2 


The Jew-badge only too well realized the evil 
intent of the Christians. Almost literally it broke 
the back of the Jew. Cringing, and drooping his 
shoulders, he went about the streets, a marked man, 
a constant target for the stones and oaths of ruffians. 
He lost his pride. Spat upon by everyone, pelted 
with offal no matter where he turned, he soon learnt 


228 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


to trudge about in the foulest of ill-smelling rags. 
His very speech ceased to be a language and became 
a jargon; his lyric gift in prayer degenerated into 
a pitiable whine. Even in his own eyes he almost 
became what the Churchmen tried their hardest 
to make him—a despicable and loathsome wretch. 

Not unjustly do historians mark the year 1215 
as the beginning of the Night. 

But even though the Jew-badge broke his spirit, 
yet it did not end his life. The Jew still lived, and 
financially often had the name of prospering. He 
had wealth—tremendous, uncounted wealth, so the 
Christians believed. At least, when they had to 
have money, the Jew was often ready to be the 
money lender. 


3 


The Jews had become the money lenders of Eu- 
rope for quite evident reasons. The Church sternly 
forbade all Christians to engage in the pursuit. 
And since money lending—or banking, as we now 
call it—was indispensable to the well-being of com- 
merce and government, the Jews simply had to 
take it up. There was no one else in Europe free 
to do it. 

And with great eagerness did the Jews take to 
money lending, for the occupation exactly suited 
their circumstances. Living in constant dread of 
riots, not knowing when they might have to flee, 
the Jews had to engage in a business requiring no 
bulky stock-in-trade. Farming would not do, for 
fields and haystacks could hardly be thrown into 
a chest and hidden in the ground, or carried off in 


THE NIGHT 229 


the night. Coins and jewels and deeds were much 
better. 

So the Jews became the money lenders of Europe. 
They developed a great shrewdness and cunning 
in the one and only field of opportunity left open 
to them. And with their shrewdness and cunning 
they developed a certain cruelty and greed. That 
was natural. The world was cruel to them, so when 
the chance was theirs, they were cruel in return. 
Their high ‘“‘overhead”’ drove them to become 
usurers, and they charged all the interest on their 
loans that they could possibly get.. There was no 
other way for them to survive. So many borrowers 
never repaid their loans, that those who did had to 
make up for those who did not. 

And by shrewdness and cunning, by usury and 
thrift, the Jews managed to crawl and wriggle their 
way through to wealth. So the Christian world de- 
cided that its next task, now that the Jew had been 
robbed of his pride, was to rob him also of his pelf. 


4 


Robbing the Jew was not a difficult task, for he 
was altogether friendless in the Christian world. 
He would not consent to be a member of the Church, 
and therefore he was not allowed to be a member 
of the State. Occasionally, for an adequate bribe, 
a pope would protest against the more extravagant 
tortures inflicted upon the Jews by minor princes 
of the Church; but usually his protest was made 
after those tortures had already been inflicted. It 
is not unjust to say that the Catholic Church with 
all its prelates and priests and friars was from first 


230 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


to last the Jew’s most implacable foe. Only on one 
condition would it spare him—if he forsook the 
faith of his fathers and turned Christian. 

Nor was the State and its kings and princes much 
better. If the secular rulers spared the Jew at all, 
it was only because they could not easily get along 
without him. Somehow or other, the Jew always 
seemed able to get money. Even though he was 
robbed of his wealth one year, he seemed to find a 
way to get at least part of it back the next. And 
for that reason the rulers spared the Jew somewhat. 
He was a never-failing source of revenue. 

To extort this revenue became almost an art with 
the rulers of medieval Europe. The simplest and 
quickest method, of course, was to murder the 
money lender. But this method had its drawback, 
for it killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. So 
more usually the king had his own officers rob the 
money lender’s house, and if the treasure had been 
removed and hidden where the robbers could not 
find it, the money lender was tortured to reveal the 
hiding place. King John of England is said to have 
ordered a tooth drawn every day from the mouth 
of one of ‘“‘his” Jews in order to learn the where- 
abouts of such a hiding place. 

But even this practice was not always satisfactory, 
for the size of the haul secured from a reputedly 
wealthy Jew was often far less than had been antic- 
ipated. So it was found more profitable to rob whole 
communities of Jews at one time. And this was 
frequently done. Charges of one sort or another 
were trumped up against the Jews of a particular 
town or country, their property was confiscated, 


Bt \ 
‘ } fo 
Vy } Z ae 
LM ff ' 7 Sei 
CLL LL n LON gy, 
27.2 * 9 29,6 a rearre 2 
a ees pe ae ED bee Lhe ES 
: Pata Si eh lie yaa ‘ c eg] 
Weenie, oie - Seer 
I a 


232 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


and then they themselves were ordered out. And in 
a few years, after they were permitted back again, 
the devilish game was repeated. 

In that manner the Jews were expelled from 
France in 1182, and then permitted to return in 
1198. They were expelled a second time in 1306, and 
a second time permitted to return in 1315. 

And so it went. Year after year without rest, 
the hunted Jews had to drag their weary feet 
from pillar to post. They were ordered out of 
Vienna, Cologne, Wittenberg, Hamburg, Bruenn, and 
Olmuetz. And out of Trent, Nuremberg, Ulm, and 
Magdeburg. From one town after another they 
were hounded without mercy, finding rest only in 
the grave. 

Yet they would not surrender. Stubbornly they 
carried on, true to the faith of their fathers. Obsti- 
nately they persisted, still a strange, a different 
people. 


5 


Finally signs multiplied that the Jews were be- 
ginning to exhaust the patience of their persecutors. 
Expulsions grew more frequent, and permits to 
return more rare. The Catholic Church yielded 
at last—though only unofficially—to the demand 
for Christian usurers, and the Jews gradually be- 
came no longer indispensable. Good Catholics 
who were friends of the pope, were permitted to 
loan money to the kings of Europe; and thus the 
Jews in Europe lost the one function that so long 
had saved them from expulsion. In previous years 
a king sometimes arrested them merely to keep 


THE NIGHT 233 


them from leaving his country; or he invited them 
back soon after they had been robbed or expelled. 
He had not been able to get along without them then. 


But now all that was changed, and it became far 
more usual for him to drive out the Jews and tell 
them to stay out. 

In the year 1290 every professing Jew in all 


234 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


England was ordered out of the country ‘‘forever.”’ 
Between sixteen and seventeen thousand of them 
had to flee, and none dared to return until almost 
four hundred years afterward. William Shakespeare 
wrote his ‘‘Merchant of Venice’? probably without 
ever having seen a real Jew. . . 

In the year 1394 the Jews of France were also 
expelled—this time in earnest. ‘To prevent their 
return, a law was passed making it a capital crime 
for any Christian to shield or even converse with 
a Jew. 

A similar fate befell many of the Jews of Ger- 
many, though it was not the land as a unit, but 
certain individual towns that expelled them. 


6 


And finally it came Spain’s turn. Persecution had 
occurred there on and off for over a century, and, 
after 1391, became almost incessant. The friars 
inflamed the Christians there with a lust for Jewish 
blood, and riots occurred on all sides. For the Jews 
it was simply a choice between baptism and death, 
and many of them submitted to baptism. One 
friar, Vincente Ferrer, is reported to have converted 
no less than thirty-five thousand of them. 

But almost always conversion on these terms was 
only outward and false. Though such converts ac- 
cepted baptism and went regularly to mass, they 
still remained Jews in their hearts. They were 
called Maranos, ‘‘Accursed Ones,”’ and there were 
perhaps a hundred thousand of them in the land. 
Often they possessed enormous wealth. Their 
daughters married into the noblest families, even 


THE NIGHT 235 


into the blood royal; and their sons sometimes 
entered the Church and rose to the highest offices. 
It is said that even one of the popes was of this 
Marano stock. 

Fanatical churchmen were frantic with pent-up 
rage. Throughout Spain they saw men and women 
who called themselves Christians, enjoyed all the 
privileges of Christians, and yet still remained Jews. 
The monks who had labored so frenziedly to con- 
vert them, felt that they had been fooled and cheated. 
And in their anger they instituted the unspeakable 
Inquisition. 


7 


The Inquisition was a court to try, condemn, and 
punish those suspected of religious heresies. It was 
established in 1480 and continued its murderous 
work for many hundreds of years. Its broadsides 
at first were not directed against professing Jews— 
they were left to the mercies of the mob—but against 
professing Christians who secretly or openly doubted 
any of the Church dogmas. For many years the 
vast majority of its victims, of course, were the 
Maranos. The Church was determined to get rid 
of them, for they were like a canker eating at its 
very heart. And incidentally, Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella, the King and Queen of Spain, desired to kill 
them off in order to get hold of their enormous wealth. 

Three years after the establishment of the In- 
quisition a fiend named Torquemada was put at 
its head. On the slightest fragment of gossip 
dropped by a Christian servant-girl in confessional, 
her Marano master and mistress were dragged before 


236 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


the Inquisition, tortured till they confessed their 
secret Jewishness, and then burnt at the stake. An 
auto-da-fé, an ‘‘act of faith,’’ such a public burning 
was called; and it was a great sporting event for the 
Christians. They attended it in all their gayest 
raiment, and witnessed the death agonies of the 
condemned with songs and jeers. 

But the Inquisition soon found itself incapable 
of handling all the suspects. There proved to be 
too many of them. The blame for this naturally 
fell on the Jews who had remained openly loyal to 
their faith even in name. It was common knowledge 
that they held secret prayer meetings to bolster the 
faith in the Maranos, and used other ways to keep 
the old religion alive among them. There was no 
help for it, therefore, but to turn on those uncon- 
verted Jews. For it was now plain that they were 
the real menace to the Church. 

And so it happened that in the year 1492 all the 
unconverted Jews in the realm of Spain were driven 
out. They were more than two hundred thousand 
in number, and they were compelled to leave all 
their gold and silver and jewels behind them. A 
single word—just one gesture—to show they were 
willing to surrender their faith, and any one of them 
would have been spared. 

But no. Rather would they all sacrifice their 
homes and their wealth, than forsake their religion. 
So off into the night they went, outcasts and fugi- 
tives. Off they wandered in utter bewilderment to 
seek a new home. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


HOW THE JEWS FLED FROM WESTERN EUROPE TO 
POLAND AND TURKEY 


So once more we find the Jews cast out and wan- 
dering in search of a new resting place. Further 
west it was impossible for them to go, for the New 
World had not yet been discovered. Of necessity, 
therefore, they had to go back east again. 

And by now things had changed for the better 
in the East, and they found a ready welcome there. 
Jews from the northern half of Western Europe— 
the ‘‘Ashkenazim”’ as they were called, because the 
Hebrew for Germany is Ashkenaz—wandered off 
to Poland. Probably there already were scattered 
communities of Jews in Poland to welcome the ref- 
ugees from the west. We are told of a large tribe 
of Tartars called the Khazars, who in the eighth 
century were converted to Judaism and established 
a Jewish kingdom in southern Russia.* Although 
that kingdom was destroyed by the Russians in 
the tenth century, no doubt many of the descend- 
ants of the Khazars were still living in the region. 


* Judah Halevi, the poet of the “Golden Age,” made this 
conversion the central incident in his famous book called “Al 
Khazari.’”’ In it he gives the arguments used by the rabbi who 
won over the king of the Khazars. But Halevi wrote the book 
four hundred years after the event, and was of course drawing 
altogether on his imagination. Just how the Khazars really 
came to accept Judaism we do not at all know. 


238 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


And no doubt they readily greeted their brethren as 
they came flocking in from Germany. 

The kings of Poland did not at all oppose the 
vast immigration of Jews. Their land was still 
sparsely settled, and almost barbaric. There was 
little commerce in it, for there were exceedingly 
few towns or villages. So the Jews, who were now 


3B 


28.—The Home of the Khazars 


known to be primarily a commercial people, were 
welcomed by the shrewd kings. Wherever a Jew 
settled, there a store and a market place arose; 
and wherever a store and market place arose, there 
the Polish peasants began to stake out farms and 
build their hovels. Thus gradually many villages 
and towns began to appear in the land. 

But many years had to pass before the Jews 
began to feel at home in the new environment. 


psomysoy 146 AY. L—'6é 


4 
NY y 
{ 
{ 
\ 


240 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


The unrefined life of the barbaric serfs around them 
made them look back with longing to the civilized 
land from which they had been driven. They still 
spoke German—though with the passing of the 
generations that German changed to the speech 
now known to us as Yiddish. And they still called 
each other by the names of the German cities from 
which they had been expelled. 


2 


Exactly the same thing happened to the Jews 
who were driven from Spain—the ‘‘Sephardim,”’ 
as they were called, because the Hebrew word for 
Spain is Sepharad. They wandered off to Turkey 
and to other Mohammedan lands; and the sultans 
received them with no little delight. But those 
Jews, too, felt themselves in a lower grade environ- 
ment, and they never gave up their old speech. Just 
as the Ashkenazim in the north developed Yiddish, 
so the Sephardim in the south developed Ladino, 
a dialect also written in Hebrew characters, but 
made up principally of sixteenth-century Spanish 
interspersed with many Hebrew words. 


3 


Not all the Jews wandered off to Poland and 
Turkey, however. The many hundreds of thou- 
sands not courageous enough to uproot themselves 
and leave their old homes and the graves of their 
forefathers, remained behind. In Germany, Italy, 
and Austria they managed to drag out a pitiable 
existence in the comparatively few towns which 
had not absolutely expelled their race; and in Spain 


THE FLIGHT EASTWARD 241 


and Portugal they lived on, despite the Inquisition, 
as Maranos. 

In each of those German and Italian towns they 
were forced to live in what was called a Ghetto. The 
first of them in Italy was created in Venice, and 
was located in a foul corner of the town near the 
“‘Gietto,” the gun factory. And probably that is 
how we get the word. 

From the very beginning of the Exile the Jews 
had been inclined to live together in little groups. 
Even before the Talmud became their law they pre- 
ferred to keep to themselves, for after all, they were 
a ‘different’ people. And the Talmud, with its 
innumerable minute regulations, only intensified 
that preference. No matter where the town, the 
Jews almost instinctively drifted toward one partic- 
ular street or section in it. Thus in London be- 
fore their expulsion most of them lived on a narrow 
lane which to this day is know as Old Jewry. 

But in those earlier years it was always a matter of 
desire, not of duress. There was no law forbidding 
them to live wherever they pleased in a city. Only 
in the towns of early Spain, before the Mohammedans 
conquered the land, was any attempt made to re- 
strict Jewish dwellings to certain streets. 

But in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries such 
restrictions began to be made and enforced also 
in the German cities, and in the fourteenth century 
in the Sicilian cities. And gradually the evil custom 
spread to other parts of Europe. By the sixteenth 
century few indeed were the West-European Jews 
who were not forced to live in these segregated 
districts. 


242 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


4 


Almost always the ghetto was situated in the 
foulest part of the town. In Rome, for instance, a 
few vile alleys down in the lower end of the city 
sheltered the Jews. Year after year the River Tiber 
in flood sent its ill-smelling waters through those 
alleys, leaving behind thick layers of oozy mud that 
steamed with malaria and other diseases. 

Almost always, too, the ghettos grew fearfully 
overcrowded. Though the Jews rapidly increased 
in numbers, bearing children and children’s children, 
the ghettos were rarely if ever enlarged. In Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main, for instance, four thousand souls 
were packed into fewer than two hundred houses 
in a gloomy street too narrow for a wagon to turn 
in! Two and three families had to live in one and 
the same room. Even the cemeteries became so 
choked that the tombstones were often piled almost 
on top of each other. 

It was impossible to keep the ghettos clean. 
Refuse was littered everywhere, and huge rats 
scuttled about in the cellars and walls. If a fever 
broke out, hardly a family escaped; if a fire was 
started, not a house could be saved. 

Nor was this all. High walls surrounded the 
ghettos, and their gates could be closed and locked. 
At first this was looked on as an advantage by the 
Jews, for their thought was that the walls would 
protect them from the murderous mobs. Every 
night they locked the gate in the belief that it safe- 
guarded them from attack. But later they dis- 
covered that the gate shut them in far more effect- 


THE FLIGHT EASTWARD 243 


ively than it shut the Christians out. The ghetto 
became a prison yard, and when lustful mobs wanted 
their Jews, they knew just where to find them. 
Once the gate was battered down, the Jews were 
trapped in their narrow alleys and were lost. 

And there was still another evil. Life in the ghetto 
with its imprisoning walls, its dilapidated houses, 
its open sewers in every street, came to affect the 
Jew for evil much the same as did the badge he was 
forced to wear. It not merely stunted his body, 
but it also warped his soul. It condemned him to 
skulk like a criminal or a leper behind bars. All his 
social life had to be lived in its close air. If he was 
caught outside the ghetto gates after dark, he was 
arrested and perhaps put to death. 

Even during the day, when he was free to roam 
through the city, he could seldom make friends. 
The Jew-badge sewn to his ragged clothing, marked 
him off as low and despicable. Very rarely, now, 
was he able to carry on the business of money lending 
save on a petty scale. He could not be a craftsman 
of any sort because the guilds, the trade unions of 
medieval times, rigidly excluded him from member- 
ship. Even as a trader he was restricted, for in many 
lands a law forbade him to sell any but second- 
hand goods. He had to eke out a livelihood as a 
rag-peddler or a haggling pawnbroker. Deeper and 
deeper he was ground into the dust. 


5 


But there was still one place left on earth where he 
was noble and free—and that place was his home. 
Even though it may have been but a corner of some 


244 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


foul cellar, still he was king there. All the love in 
his being, dammed in by the outside world, was 
lavished on his wife and children. The home became 
his temple, and the family table his holy altar. 
As often as the Sabbath came, he would throw off 
his rags, bathe, dress in his finest raiment, and feel 
himself once more the Chosen of God. The Sabbath 
table would be spread with its white linen, its bright 
lamps, its mountainous twisted loaves. The little 
wine cup would be drained to the glory of God and 
the Holy Days. Prayers would be offered and even 
merry songs would be sung. All the thousand woes 
of daily life would be utterly forgotten. And with 
that old hope that had never quite been crushed, 
the Jew would dream again of his Messiah. 

That is the miracle of the Ghetto—and the miracle 
of the Jew. All the hideous degradations that a 
stupidly hostile world could heap on him, could not 
rob him of that solace. The frenzied words of the 
Prophets of ancient Judea still lived on in his heart. 
Through the week they flickered low in the wind of 
hatred, but on the Sabbath day in his own home they 
burst into triumphant flame. He would sézll be 
redeemed, he believed! Some day, some day, the 
God he had served all through that terrible night, 
would bring on the dawn again! Some day his 
Messiah would come!.. . 


CHAPTER XXX 


HOW THE JEWS HELPED TO BRING ABOUT THE 
PROTESTANT REFORMATION 


The hostility of the Catholic Church to Judaism 
is simply explained. The foundation of that Church 
was the naive claim that it alone knew and treasured 
the whole Truth. It would not admit that there 
might be ‘‘my” belief and ‘‘yours,”’ but insisted 
that there could only be the ‘‘true”’ belief and the 
‘false.’ All who belonged to the Church enjoyed 
the safety of the ‘‘true” belief; while all who were 
so foolish as to remain outside the Church, shared 
in the unvarying deadly harm of the ‘‘false.”’ 

It was an altogether absurd, a pathetically stupid 
claim—but nevertheless it was insisted on. And 
because the Synagogue frankly refused to accept it, 
the Church was as frankly relentless in its perse- 
cution. For no matter how battered and crippled 
and small it may have been, the Synagogue still 
constituted a living challenge. It was the one un- 
mistakable, ever-flaming protest against the pre- 
sumption of the Church. It was more than a thorn. 
Scattered as it was throughout the lands of Christen- 
dom, the Synagogue operated on every side rather 
like a network of tiny rapiers that bled the sense of 
self-sufficiency in the Church. 

That explains why the Church would give the Jew 
no rest. He was its most dangerous enemy, for 


246 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


wherever he migrated he encouraged heresies. He 
did not do it by active agitation; he did not have to. 
His very presence in a community was enough. For 
his very presence proved it was possible to remain 
outside the Church, to be unorthodox, and still 
live and face death peacefully. ° 

One cannot doubt, therefore, that it was this pres- 
ence of the Jew in Christian Europe, and the spirit 
of protest which he kept alive, that helped bring on 
the great Protestant Reformation. 


2 


It is significant that the first skirmish in that Ref- 
ormation sprang out of an attack on the Jews. A 
certain baptized Jew named Pfefferkorn, eager to 
show how good a Christian he had become, per- 
suaded the Emperor of Germany in 1590 to order 
the burning of all the Hebrew books in the hands of 
the Jews of Frankfort and Cologne. Such burnings, 
especially of copies of the Talmud, had already 
occurred several times before in Europe; for it was 
charged that those books contained wicked attacks 
on Christianity. The Jews had always protested, 
but never with success. 

This time, however, they had better fortune. 
The Emperor, desiring to be just, called in a famous 
Christian named Reuchlin to give an opinion on the 
ease. Like many other great scholars of that day— 
the Humanists, as they were calléd—Reuchlin was 
well versed in Hebrew literature. He had studied 
in Rome under Jews, and had written on Hebrew 
_ grammar and Cabala. His report was favorable 
to the Jews, declaring that their books were useful 


THE RENDING OF THE CHURCH 247 


for theology and science, and contained no heresy 
whatsoever. And as a result of that report the 
Emperor rescinded his order. 

Immediately Pfefforkorn, with the aid of the 
Dominican friars whose tool he was, launched an 
attack on Reuchlin. But the humanist was a man 
of courage as well as learning, and he fought back. 
And the conflict that ensued helped to clear the 
way for Martin Luther and his Reformation. It 
opened the eyes of the more intelligent Christians 
to the corruption and the ignorance of the Church. 


3 


A new spirit had already gathered momentum 
in Europe—a spirit that came to be called the 
Renaissance, the ‘“‘Rebirth.” For the first time in 
centuries man dared to give his mind freer play, 
and dared again to ask questions. This generation 
was no longer content to accept all that the church- 
men told it, but began to go back to the Hebrew 
and Greek writings from which those churchmen 
claimed to have derived their authority. Those 
writings were only available because of the activity 
of the Jews and the Arabs during the ‘‘Golden 
Age.”’ It was Jews and Arabs who had translated 
and interpreted the Holy Scriptures of the ancient 
Hebrews, and the scientific works of the ancient 
Greeks, so that Christian scholars—now that they 
were interested—at last could see what those books 
contained. 

-Of course, the result was devastating to the pres- 
tige of the Church. Its religion was discovered to 
be grossly unlike the religion of the Hebrews and 


248 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Jesus; and its science, when compared with the science 
of the Greeks, was found to be altogether false. 

Martin Luther, although himself a priest at the 
time, was one of those who saw how extreme was 
the difference between the religion of the Church 
and the religion of the Scriptures. He had studied 
Hebrew under Reuchlin and was able to read those 
Scriptures in the original tongue. And having read 
them diligently, he finally made public what he had 
discovered. On Hallowe’en Day in the year 1517, he 
nailed a statement of certain of his beliefs to the door 
of his little church in Wittenberg, in Germany. And 
with that courageous act, Protestantism was born. 

Luther insisted that not the Pope but the Holy 
Scriptures were the final religious authority to 
which every man should bow. For that reason he 
made it one of his first tasks to translate the Bible 
into German, so that every man might be able to 
consult it for and by himself. In making that trans- 
lation, he relied considerably on the commentary 
written by the Jewish scholar named Rashi who 
lived in France in the eleventh century. But save in 
that indirect fashion, Jews exercised little influence 
on the development of the new movement. By their 
long and heroic struggle against the Church they 
had pointed the way for Protestantism. By their 
very presence in Europe they had helped to bring the 
heresy into being. But once it was born, they let 
it severely alone. 


4 


It is curious how Luther acted toward the Jews. 
At first they were highly in favor with him, and he 


THE RENDING OF THE CHURCH 249 


had nothing but praise for their age-old resistance 
to the Church. In an essay entitled ‘“‘Jesus Was 
Born a Jew,” he wrote: ‘‘ They (the Jews) are blood- 
relations of our Lord; and if it were proper to boast 
of flesh and blood, the Jews belong to Christ more 
than we. ... Therefore it is my advice that we 
treat them kindly. . . . We must exercise not the 
law of the Pope, but that of Christian love, and 
show them a friendly spirit. . . .” 

But later it became evident that Luther had not 
written those words out of a desire to be fair to the 
Jews, but out of a desire to convert them. For as 
he grew older and saw that the Jews could not be 
converted, his whole attitude changed. With a 
rancor and bitterness hard to account for, he sud- 
denly began condemning the Jews. He accused 
them now of all those fictitious crimes which had 
made Europe such a hell for them. He, too, now 
claimed that they poisoned the wells used by Chris- 
tians, assassinated their Christian patients, and 
murdered Christian children to procure blood for 
the Passover. He called on the princes and rulers to 
persecute them mercilessly, and commanded the 
preachers to set the mobs on them. He declared 
that if the power were his, he would take all the 
leaders of the Jews and tear their tongues out by the 

roots! 


5 


The story of the earlier and later attitude of 
Luther toward the Jews of Germany strangely par- 
allels that of Mohammed toward the Jews of Arabia. 
And just as Mohammedanism in the beginning 


250 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


brought the unconvertible folk exceedingly little 
benefit, just so Protestantism brought them no 
good. On the contrary, Luther’s movement in 
those years caused the Jews even more distress— 
if that was possible—than they had known while 
in the talons of the undivided Church. For soon 
a reaction set in, and the Church with mad des- 
peration tried to win back its old power. The laxity 
that had crept into its government, and that had 
made it possible for the Jews to live at all, was now 
suddenly checked. 

All the harshest canons and regulations were now 
put in force again. The Talmud and other Hebrew 
works were ordered to be destroyed in the Papal 
States—and now no Reuchlin was permitted to 
intercede. Jews were compelled to support schools 
for their own conversion. They were not allowed 
to own real estate. Wherever they went, the men 
had to wear green caps, and the women green veils. 
The physicians among them were absolutely for- 
bidden to attend Christian patients. . . . The Jews 
were expelled from Lower Austria, and twice within 
twenty years from Bohemia. . . . Even in Poland, 
where they had been left at peace until now, the 
Jesuit missionaries of the Church brought misery 
and death to the Jews. 

Dawn had come to the Christian world, and the 
darkness that had reigned for thirteen hundred 
years, was at last being dispelled. . 

But for the Jews there was still no dawn. For 
them it was still unbroken Night. 


EUROPE BABYLONIA 


GERMANY SPAIN 3 Persecution 
FRANCE Jews 


IBN GABIR.OL 


1021 + 10.70 


(Growth of Arabic — 

1040 = 1105 Jewish NIENCE ih I Pan 
TOSAFISTS 

Tixst Crusade\(/nterest onty| JUDAH_ HALEWI 

Terrible “72 [timud) 1083 = \i40 

* Persecuti ABRAHAM IBN EZRA 


§O92 = GT 


MAIMONIDES 


Southern U3g7 ~ 1204 
France cenier 


Persecutions of learning 
Crusade vs. (3 s 
Massacres | £/higenses 1205 Jeu Badge Law 
ends ciyi- Lasse 
drzalion In 
” 5a France . 
THE ITERRIBLIE NIGHT 


(290 -Jews Rise off |Cabacea) 


“Moren 
Ag ticked NEVucHin* 


from £i nln SAL Lt 


“Momen Nevucnim” Published. 
"ot 


Terrible MASS~ 1 s 
acres at time | Expulsions 
of Brack Death Land massacr 


Constant 
Persecution 


All Jews Vincente lerrer converts | 
Expelled Jews -~wholesale 


2730e of Merrrvanoo 


Expulsions 


Massacres 1480 /npuisivion Lotahlished 
1492FT XPULSION FROM 

PREUCHLIN: 

Bey Sb pg eg 


Prolestant 
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HOLLAND AMERICA 
Chart E. The Adventures of the Jews, Part V 


ARR ANOS 


f 


CHAPTER XXXI 


PERSECUTION COMPELS THE JEWS TO RE-INFORCE 
THE WALL OF LAW AROUND THEMSELVES 


And because darkness still reigned supreme in the 
world’s attitude toward the Jew, darkness reigned 
also in the Jew’s attitude toward his own religion. 
The clear light that had flamed in Jewish learning 
during the ‘“‘Golden Age,’ burned lower and lower 
till at last only a spark was left alive. As we have 
already seen, Maimonides’ ‘‘Guide for the Perplexed” 
was publicly burned only forty years after its great 
author died. All philosophy was branded a dangerous 
study, and only the Talmud and Cabala were rec- 
ommended by the rabbis. 

The light, however, could not be entirely snuffed 
out at once. Philosophy still was studied by the 
more courageous of the scholars, and several learned 
works—largely imitations of the ‘‘Guide’’—were 
produced in the century that followed. 

Science, too, still had its devotees among the Jews. 
Scholars like Jacob Anatoli translated important 
scientific works from Arabic and Hebrew into Latin. 
Others, like Levi ben Gershom, Abraham Zacuto, 
and Jaffuda Cresques, created the astronomical 
instruments, the mathematical tables, and the maps 
which made possible the voyages of Columbus and 
the other world explorers. Still others went on those 
voyages themselves. Several Jews were with Co- 


THE WALL OF JEWISH LAW 253 


lumbus on his expeditions to America, and the first 
white man to set foot on the continent was his inter- 
preter, a Jew named Luis de Torres.* 


2 


Neither did the lively Hebrew literature of the 
‘“‘Golden Age” disappear all at once. Immanuel 
of Rome, a friend of Dante, wrote clever poetry 
that was rather shocking. And another, Kalonymus 
ben Kalonymus, dared to produce and circulate an 
amusing ‘‘take-off”’ on the Talmud. 

The ferment of new ideas in Christian Europe 
which is called the Renaissance, did not pass by and 
leave the Jews unaffected. They themselves had 
helped to give the ferment a start, for Jews had been 
foremost among the teachers of the Humanists. 
Naturally, therefore, they themselves were influ- 
enced by its rise. 

_ For instance, a Jew named Elijah Levita, who had 

taught Hebrew to many famous Christians, made 
at least one bold discovery concerning the text of 
the Scriptures. He became convinced that the 
vowel points in the Hebrew Bible had not been put 
in by Moses or Ezra, as people firmly believed, but 
by certain unknown scholars living long after the 
Talmud had been completed. His announcement 
bewildered the Jews and then aroused them to great 
anger. lLevita’s discovery meant that the text of 
the Bible in use among them was of relatively late 
origin! 

Then there was a frail and withered scholar named — 


* This same Luis de Torres is reputed to have been the man 
who first discovered the use of tobacco. 


254 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Azariah dei Rossi, one of those amazing Jews who 
had wandered everywhere and seemed to know 
everything. He wrote voluminously on Jewish 
history and science, and always with fine daring. 
Whenever a real contradiction arose between reason 
and a time-honored belief, he sided completely with 
reason. And he was the first Jewish scholar with 
sufficient daring to declare openly that on matters 
of science the whole Talmud was unreliable! 

But such scholars received no sympathy or en- 
couragement from the run of their fellow Jews. 
On the contrary, their works were reviled and their 
lives were plagued. The poetry of Immanuel of 
Rome was rabbinically condemned. Elijah Levita 
found his brethren so hostile, that most of his life 
was spent solely with Christian associates. And 
Azariah dei Rossi narrowly escaped excommunica- 
tion. 

So it went with all the other scholars who dared 
to display independence and courage in their think- 
ing. In the eyes of the orthodox rabbis of the day, 
they were ‘“‘destructive critics.”” And in the judg- 
ment of those rabbis all destructive criticism—indeed, 
criticism of any sort—seemed fearful and dangerous. 
They insisted that there be no prying or doubting, 
but only dumb belief. Very much like the priests of 
the Church, the rabbis of the Synagogue could only 
tolerate unqualified orthodoxy. 

For they were frightened. They- knew that once 
more Israel stood in danger of destruction. It had 
been all very well in the ‘‘Golden Age”’ to lower the 
wall around the Jew and let in a little light. In the 
‘“‘Golden Age” the sea outside the wall had been 


THE WALL OF JEWISH LAW 255 


calm and still. But now that the sea again raged 
with fury, even those breaches that had already 
been made, needed to be quickly closed against the 
flood. 


3 


So in the very century when light was streaming 
into the Church, the breaches in the walls of the 
Synagogue were being filled and all light was being 
shut out. The very age that saw the rise of pro- 
phetic reformers in Christendom, saw the rise of 
priestly rabbis in Israel. 

The laws of the Talmud recovered their old im- 
portance, and along with them, myriads of new 
little laws that had been devised by later rabbis. 
New notebooks or digests were compiled to make 
those laws better known to the people. As early as 
‘the eleventh century one of these digests was com- 
piled by a rabbi named Alfasi. In the fourteenth 
century, Asher ben Yechiel made another. His 
son, Jacob ben Asher, followed with a third. And 
there were also many others of lesser importance. 

But not until the sixteenth century were the 
Jews ready to make a new gospel of such a law code, 
and then a rabbi named Joseph Karo compiled a 
work called the Shulchan Aruch. 


t 


Joseph Karo was a Spanish Jew who settled in 
Safed, in Galilee, and became chief rabbi there. 
(The rule of the Turks had grown tolerant again, 
and Palestine had once more become an important 
Jewish center.) He was one of those scholars who 


256 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


thought all worldly wisdom was confined to the 
Talmud, and he pored over it till he knew it almost 
by heart. He seems to have been a true product 
of his surroundings: a gadgrind with a marvelous 
memory but no originality, a vast capacity for work 
but no genius. His imagination was of the sort that 
trailed its wings in the stagnant waters of magic 
and superstition. And his courage was of the sort 
that essayed huge tasks rather than adventurous 
ones. His whole intelligence was typically that 
of the ultra-priest—slow, safe, and soggy. 
Practically all his life was devoted to the one 
monumental undertaking, the compiling of his 
Shulehan Aruch. The book was an exhaustive 
digest of the laws and customs regulating the life 
of the Jew; and it covered everything, from a rul- 
ing as to which shoe should be put on first when 
dressing, to how love should be made, and how 
children should be reared. It clamped the Jew in 
an iron mold, and forced all his life and thought to 
become rigid and unchangeable. And soon after 
it was first printed (1564), the Shulchan Aruch 
was accepted as the highest authority in the legal 
literature of Israel. It gained acceptance in all 
the lands of the Diaspora, for although Karo him- 
self had included in it only the regulations honored 
by the Sephardic Jews, a Polish Talmudist named 
Moses Isserles hastily added the many other regu- 
lations honored by the Ashkenazim. From then on 
succeeding scholars began to write commentaries on it 
as their predecessors had written commentaries on the 
Bible and the Talmud. They are still writing com- 
mentaries on it to this day, in Eastern Europe. .. . 


THE WALL OF JEWISH LAW 257 


And thus did the Jews take unto themselves a 
veritable ‘‘printed pope.” 

It was inevitable, of course, that this should 
happen. Persecution forced the Jews to build up 
their wall of law or else drown in the sea of oppres- 
sion. It was but a repetition of what had happened 
in Palestine after the Destruction of Jersualem, and 
in Babylonia after the Dispersion, and in Northern 
Europe during the Crusades. Death had the Jews 
almost in its talons—and they would not die. 

Even among the Jews themselves, there are many 
to-day who look on the triumph of the priestly 
Shulchan Aruch as one of the tragic incidents in 
this history. But perhaps there would not have 
been a to-day for the Jews if in the sixteenth century 
there had been no Shulchan Aruch. .. . 

This code may have condemned them to im- 
prisonment for life, but at least it saved them from 
death. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


THE GLOOM BEHIND THE WALL OF LAW GIVES 
RISE TO THE CABALA AND THE FALSE MES- 
SIAHS 


If there was any light behind the gloomy wall of 
Law which the Jews had built around themselves, 
it was but the phosphorescent glow cast by the 
Cabala. As far back as Bible times there had been 
a trace of that glow in Jewish life. It increased 
somewhat in Talmudic times, probably through 
association with the Persians. In Gaonic times it 
grew brighter still. Rabbis bored to desperation 
with sifting the dead ashes of the Law, eagerly 
took to playing with the flame of magic. It died 
down again while the sun of reason shone among the 
philosophers of the ‘“‘Golden Age.” But as soon 
as that sun set, the eerie gleam of the Cabala ap- 
peared again. 

And then the real age of the Cabala followed. 
It received its first impetus from a book called the 
Zohar (the ‘‘Splendor’’), late in the thirteenth cen- 
tury. This Zohar contained a Cabalistic explana- 
tion of the Torah that purported to reveal all the 
‘“‘secret meanings”’ underlying the peculiar phrases 
and words of the holy text. A Spanish Jew named 
Moses de Leon, who sponsored the book, claimed it 
had been conceived and written by a wonder-working 
rabbi eleven hundred years earlier, and that the 


THE FALSE MESSIAHS 259 


manuscript had lain hidden away all the intervening 
years in a mysterious cave. In all probability, how- 
ever, he had compiled it himself from stolen ma- 
terial lifted by him from Hindu, Persian, and Hebrew 
writings. 

The popularity of the book in the Jewish world 
was amazing. Though it had set out to be merely 
a commentary on the Torah, it soon became, indeed, 
a Torah in itself. In every corner of every land of 
the Diaspora Jews pored over it and wrote com- 
mentaries on it. Contemporary Jewish philosophers 
and scientists attacked it to no avail, for its hold 
on the imagination of the people was too firm. For 
five hundred years stunted souls reveled in its mys- 
teries with all the abandon of rickety slum-children 
playing in a mud puddle. 


2 


It is difficult for a modern mind to extract much 
sense from the Zohar or any of the other Cabalistic 
works. They all seem filled to the brim with diseased 
and pathetic nonsense. We can well understand 
and, indeed, admire the underlying hunger behind 
them, the sweeping sense of wonder at the unutterable 
mystery of all life. But our minds are offended by the 
way in which those works seek to allay the hunger. 

Nothing is more reasonable than the conviction 
that veiled powers throng the universe; and nothing 
is more honorable than the desire to unveil them. 
But there are varied ways of attempting to satisfy 
that desire. There is the way of the scientist who 
by experimentation and invention tries courageously 
to tear the veils apart. There is the way of the re- 


260 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


ligious mystic who by piety and meditation tries 
humbly to pray them apart. There is the way of 
the artist who by yielding to inspiration somehow 
stares them apart. Then there is the way of the 
Cabalist, who by mumbling incantations and boiling 
magic broths, tries almost treacherously to sneak 
them apart. 

And of all four ways, the most popular has ever 
been that of the Cabalist. 

Especially was it popular among the Jews between 
the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries—and 
for a very valid reason. To the sorry creatures 
‘ languishing behind the physical wall of the Ghetto 
and the spiritual wall of the Law, it came as a boon 
from Heaven. The Ghetto bound their feet, and 
the Law shackled their hands; but the Cabala 
let their minds run loose and wild. 

That explains the rapid spread of the Cabala 
in the Jewish world. The Law was still studied and 
observed, more out of duty, however, than love. 
The Cabala alone was wooed with free-hearted 
passion. For the Law, though it did keep the Jews 
alive, yet did not make their life worth living. The 
Cabala alone seemed able to do that for them. 
For the Cabala put heart into them by its assurance 
that their individual souls were all-important and 
holy—that the whole universe revolved about them. 
The Cabala taught every man not merely that he 
was created in the image of God, but that he was 
actually a part of Him. All could taste the ecstasy 
of union with God, of meeting, and embracing, 
and being embraced by Him, if they but knew the 
secret way that led into His presence. 


THE FALSE MESSIAHS 261 


All of which was admirable and beyond reproach. 

But Cabala went further and tried to tell how 
that union with God could be attained—and that 
was where it fell into pathetic error. It took to 
mumbling about imps and demons, about magic 
words and magic numbers, about lucky stars and 
guardian angels, about secret books and mystic 
seals. All the truck and imbecility of magic, all the 
nonsense about spells, amulets, evil eyes, and lucky 
stones, became part of Cabalistic lore. 
_It was a delusion and a snare, plunging and en- 
tangling the people in the crudest superstition. And 
generation after generation it bred False Messiahs. 


3 


To tell of all the Cabalists who set themselves up 
as Messiahs, would take many more pages than we 
can afford here. Of most of them it is enough to 
say that they suddenly appeared, preached, excited 
the people, and then disappeared. Many of them 
fell a prey to the civil authorities, and-were either 
forcibly baptized or put to death. Some of them 
may have been plain impostors, and deserving of 
that fate. But the majority of them seem to have 
been poor, half-insane fellows who were fully as 
deluded as their followers. Long brooding over the 
woes of the Jewish people, coupled with years of 
staring into the glare of the Cabala, had hypnotized 
them into really believing themselves the ‘‘ Anointed 
of God.” Typical of their faith in themselves is the 
instance of one of them who actually asked to 
be beheaded so that he might prove that he could 
come to life again! 


262 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Their daring was almost incredible. For in- 
stance, a swarthy, emaciated, quick-witted adven- 
turer named David Reubeni, managed to convince 
both the Pope at Rome, and the King of Portugal, 
of his pretensions. So great was the enthusiasm 
he aroused, that many Maranos in Portugal were 
suddenly impelled to declare themselves Jews once 
more. One of them was a handsome youth named 
Diogo Pires, who was royal secretary in one of the 
high courts. He cast aside all his honors, had him- 
self circumcised, took the Hebrew name of Solomon 
Molko, and started off impetuously to meet the 
Great Day. He ran away to Syria, and became a 
leader among the Cabalists there. (Even Joseph 
Karo, the dry legalist who wrote the Schulchan 
Aruch, became one of Molko’s disciples.) And then 
he went to Italy to proclaim to the world the im- 
mediate coming of the Messiah. 

What adventures Molko had in Italy, how he was 
befriended by ambassadors and cardinals, was 
secretly smuggled out of his death-cell by the Pope, 
met David Reubeni once more and went off with 
him to convert the Emperor, and how finally he 
was burned at the stake, provide an abundance of 
material for a thrilling novel. 


+ 


But even more fascinating is the story of Sabbatai 
Zevi, the greatest of all the False Messiahs. 

Sabbatai was born in Turkey, and early distin- 
guished himself as a pious Cabalist. He was known 
as a queer young fellow—queer enough, at least, 
to deny himself all pleasures, fast day after day, 


THE FALSE MESSIAHS 263 


and bathe in the sea even in winter. These prac- 
tices were the fashion among the extreme Cabalists: 
they starved and froze their bodies until they be- 
came delirious with the pain. And while in that 
delirium they believed they tasted the ecstasy of 
union with God. 

Sabbatai was born into a world that was all 
a-tremble with panic and excitement. The year 
1666 was approaching, and because of some curious 
manipulations of a verse in the New Testament 
Book of Revelation, 1666 was looked forward to by 
many Christians as the year of the coming of the 
Messiah. The Jews, too, had a calculation that 
pointed to his coming at about that time. The fact 
that for the Christians it was the Second Coming, 
and for the Jews the first, made very little difference. 
The exciting point was that He was coming! 

With much of the world thus nervously awaiting 
the miraculous appearance, it was neither strange 
nor difficult for a youth like Sabbatai to get a fixed 
idea into his head that he himself was the one to 
appear. Neither was it difficult for him to get 
others to accept the idea, too. In Turkey and 
Syria, where the Cabala had been sapping the in- | 
telligence of the Jews for generations, he was very 
soon accepted with mad acclaim. In Poland, 
where the ghastliest massacres were just then dec- 
imating the Jews, he was just as eagerly hailed. 
Even in Germany, Holland, and France the Jews 
took him at his word. Their spirits had been so 
broken by long-continued suffering and unremitting 
torture throughout the world, that they were ready 
to believe in anyone promising early release. Pil- 


264 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


grims came to Sabbatai from all corners of the Di- 
aspora, bearing rich gifts from their communities. 
Great rabbis in far distant lands, on hearing rumors 
of the ‘‘Messiah’s’”’ appearance, wrote to each other 
in bewilderment, not knowing what to believe or do. 

Sabbatai himself was undoubtedly deluded and 
somewhat insane; but he directed his campaign 
with rare shrewdness. He did everything possible 
to win the allegiance of the people, from distributing 
candy among the children of the town, to giving 
himself solemnly in marriage to the Torah. He 
scourged his body publicly, sang mystical songs, 
distributed printed accounts of his visions, and sent 
messengers everywhere proclaiming his messiah- 
ship. 

Finally, the Turkish officials took a hand, for 
the Sabbataian movement had begun to take on the 
semblance of a political revolt. But they did not 
exert themselves. After they had imprisoned Sab- 
batai they let his prison be turned almost into a 
throne-room by his frenzied admirers. The syna- 
gogues throughout Europe were decorated with his 
initials, ‘‘S. Z.’? In many communities, houses were 
unroofed and other preparations made for a new 
Exodus. Prayers were offered in Sabbatai’s name, 
and good-luck charms were engraved with his initials. 
Pictures were drawn of the holy Sabbatai astride a 
lion crunching a seven-headed dragon in its jaws, 
leading the Twelve Tribes on their way back to the 
Holy Land. Even some Christians caught the fever, 
and thought they sighted mysterious vessels off the 
coast of Scotland with silken sails bearing Hebrew 
inscriptions. 


SaBBATAI ZeEvi 
WAS ONE OF THE 
MANY “FALSE 
MESSIAHS” WHO 


tHE Jews cene- Ae sii 4 | 
RATION AFTER _Wy pl 
GENERATION y 

EXxciteD THEM re 

With WILD AND o/ H 


- IMPOSS'IBLAB 


HOPES, AND 
THEN CAME TO 
Some BAD END. 


30.—The Wanderings of Sabbatai Zevi 


266 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


5 


And then of a sudden the whole mad boom col- 
lapsed. A rival “Messiah”? suddenly came out of 
Poland, and failing to come to terms with Sabbatai, 
denounced him to the Sultan. Sabbatai was taken 
from the prison in which bribed officials had per- 
mitted him to do as he pleased, and was dragged 
to Adrianople. There he immediately perceived 
that his end was approaching, for the government 
had lost its patience. Frantically he looked about 
for a means of escape, and found it—in conversion. 
When he was brought for judgment before the mighty 
Sultan he simply cast off his Jewish head-dress and 
put on a Turkish turban. 

Awful was the consternation in all Israel when 
the news spread that the holy Sabbatai had turned 
Mohammedan. Great rabbis and scholars who had 
been deceived by the impostor, hung their heads 
in shame; and everywhere great sport was made of 
the Jews by their enemies. The Sultan, who might 
just as easily have been among the duped, now pre- 
tended great disgust with the credulous Jews. Seri- 
ously he spoke of converting or exterminating all 
of the hundreds of thousands in his realm; and only 
narrowly was the attempt averted. 

But the marvel of it was that even then the belief 
in Sabbatai did not cease entirely. Jews by the hun- 
dred persisted in regarding him as the long-awaited 
Messiah. They told themselves that his conversion 
was but a part of the Messianic programme, and 
they quoted from the Prophets to prove it. And 
they, too, became Mohammedans with him. 


THE FALSE MESSIAHS 267 


Sabbatai himself encouraged these simpletons 
by telling them that God had commanded him in 
a vision to change his religion outwardly. He kept 
up a continuous agitation, lying and playing traitor 
to both Jews and Turks. Finally he was trapped 
at his deceitful game and exiled to a lone village in 
Albania. And there in shame and poverty he died. 


6 


But the storm Sabbatai Zevi had aroused did not 
die with him. A century later, great rabbis in Po- 
land and Germany were still squabbling over him 
and his claims. 

And to this day in many towns in Turkey de- 
scendants are to be found of those Jews who turned 
Mohammedan with the impostor. The ‘‘Donmeh”’ 
they are called by the Turks: the ‘‘ Apostates.”’ 
They keep themselves apart from the other Jews and 
make a great show of going to the mosques and 
keeping the Mohammedan holydays. But be- 
neath it all, they are still Jews. They live side by 
side, or in houses which are secretly connected, 
marry only among themselves, have their own hid- 
den meeting-places where they pray in Hebrew or 
Ladino, and still await the return of Sabbatai the 
Messiah. Somehow they have obtained a monopoly 
of the barber trade, so that in a town like Salonica 
to-day you can hardly have your hair trimmed 
save at the hands of one of these strange half-Jews. 
And sometimes the swarthy young foreigner who 
shines your shoes in an American barber-shop, 
is also one of them... . 

It is all a bewilderingly strange story. ... 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


HOW THE SECRET JEWS OF SPAIN FLED TO HOL- 
LAND AND THE NEW WORLD 


When the Jews were cast out of Spain in 1492, 
most of them found refuge in Turkey, Palestine, and 
Syria. And we have already seen what manner of 
adventures they had there. 

But the story of the Maranos who remained be- 
hind is still to be told. 

The Inquisition continued its work of persecution, 
and not alone in Spain, but later in nearby Portugal 
also. But somehow it completely failed to accom- 
plish its purpose. The Maranos still remained 
Maranos, secretly observing the ancient Jewish 
rites, and training their children and their children’s 
children to observe them. Not merely to the third 
and fourth generations, but to the ninth and tenth, 
the practices of the ancient faith were secretly 
transmitted. Though all Spain and Portugal reeked 
with the smell of burning Jewish flesh, the heresy 
could not be destroyed. 

But as the years passed and the tyranny of the 
Inquisitors did not abate, the Maranos grew des- 
perate. Though they had great wealth and high 
station, the strain of living in hourly danger of 
exposure became too great even for them. So they 
began to think of flight. Accordingly, in the six- 
teenth century some of them followed their Jewish 
brethren who had fled to Turkey, and there they re- 


IN HOLLAND 269 


turned openly to the ancient faith. And there they 
prospered and grew enormously powerful. 

But as had happened so often before in the history 
of the Jews, in a little while their popularity began 
to wane. Perhaps it was because they had increased 
in numbers too rapidly in their new home and 
had become too prominently noticeable there. 
(When foreigners in a community are few, their 
presence is rarely resented. But when they so 
multiply that they seem to be always in the way, 
the attitude of the natives quickly changes.) So 
after the sixteenth century but few Maranos looked 
upon the Near East as a refuge. 

They began looking to the north instead; to the 
Netherlands. , 


2 


After one of the most heroic revolutions in the 
story of all mankind, Holland had just succeeded 
in freeing itself from the tyranny of Spain. Natu- 
rally, therefore, it attracted the Maranos. In greater 
and greater numbers they began to take refuge in 
the free-spirited republic, bringing with them their 
wealth and vast trading connections. And from 
then on the glory of Spain began rapidly to wane— 
and the might of Holland began to grow. 

A distinguished Jewish community arose in 
Amsterdam. Many of its members had been rather 
lofty aristocrats in the land from which they had 
fled, and had held high positions there. Former 
priests and prelates were among them; perhaps 
even former inquisitors. There were statesmen and 
physicians, scholars and financiers. And many of 


270 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


them bore romantic Spanish names that rolled off 
the tongue like polite rumblings of thunder. 

(It is interesting to picture a haughty Juan Mar- 
tinez de Caballeria and a proud Roderigo Ramirez 
de Ribera, with their black little van dyke beards, 
their enormous ruffs, their silk doublets, huddling 
with their brethren in a little synagogue and reciting 
the Hebrew prayers of their forefathers. . . .) 


3 


And from this parent colony in Holland, many 
others were formed. The King of Denmark was 
induced by the prosperity which the Jews were bring- 
ing to the Netherlands, to invite them to settle in 
his country too. Far more important, England 
now reopened its doors to the Jews. In 1654 Oliver 
Cromwell was won over by the eloquent rabbi of 
Amsterdam, Menasseh ben Israel, and set aside the 
edict that had kept the Jews out of England for 
more than three and a half centuries. From then 
on Jews from Holland—and later Germany—began 
to filter into England in a steady stream. 


+ 


Nor was that all. America too now became a 
refuge for the wandering Jews. By a strange trick 
of fate the very day after the Jews were ordered out 
of Spain was the day that Christopher Columbus 
set sail for the West. The coincidence was almost 
a prophecy. That voyage, made possible to a 
certain extent by the funds, the nautical instru- 
ments, and the man-power of the people who had just 
been made homeless, discovered for them a new home. 


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31.—The Flight of the Maranos 


272 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Maranos drifted over to the New World with the 
earliest Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors in 
such numbers that soon the dread Inquisition 
was set up there. Full half a century before the 
Pilgrim Fathers ever set foot on the continent, Jews 
were already being martyred at the autos-da-fé in 
Mexico and Peru. 

But fortunately for the Jews, not all the New 
World fell into the hands of fanatical Catholics. 
In 1642 a group of six hundred Jews set sail from 
Holland for Brazil, which then was a possession of 
the Dutch. The community grew rapidly, so that 
twelve years later, when the Portuguese conquered 
the province, several thousand Jews had to flee. 
Most of them settled in the Dutch West Indies, 
but a shipload of twenty-three found their way to 
New York, which then was called New Amsterdam. 
The governor, Peter Stuyvesant, tried to keep the 
little band of fugitives from landing; but the 
Dutch West Indies Company, which was partly 
controlled by Amsterdam Jews, sent orders to him 
to let them in. Before the orders could arrive, how- 
ever, several of the wanderers had gone on and taken 
refuge in Rhode Island, where full religious liberty 
had been granted all settlers. 

And thus did the Wandering People cross the 
threshold of the New World. 


5 


At first it was only the Sephardic Jews from 
Spain and Holland who wandered to the new colonies. 
But soon the Ashkenazic Jews from Germany began 
to emigrate to them also. The Thirty Years War 


32.—How the Jews Came to America 


274 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


had brought ruin in their homeland to countless 
thousands of these Ashkenazim, and in droves they 
now poured out to settle in freer places. They fled 
to Holland, and thence to England and America. 
And everywhere a feeling of coolness arose between 
them and the Sephardim. The two groups were quite 
unlike each other, not alone in language and culture, 
but also in stature, features, and complexion. They 
seemed almost to belong to two different races. 
(There must have been much Spanish blood in the 
veins of those former Maranos, and not a little 
German blood in the veins of the others.) They 
kept apart from each other, praying in separate 
synagogues and using somewhat different rituals. 
Perhaps what united them most was the silent 
pressure of the Gentile, who drew no distinctions 
and called them all Jews. 

Of course, the Sephardim were considered the 
superior of the two groups, for they were far wealth- 
ier, more cultured, and better groomed than their 
brethren who had just escaped from the foul German 
ghettos. But for all that, those Sephardim were a 
sadly narrow and bigoted lot. They who had 
writhed so long in the clutches of an intolerant 
Church now became intolerant themselves. 

And because of that intolerance they committed 
two of the saddest crimes in all the long history of 
their people. ... 


6 


A certain scholarly young Spaniard named Uriel 
Acosta, though belonging to a Marano family that 
for generations had been strictly Catholic, suddenly 


IN HOLLAND 275 


fled away to Amsterdam to become a Jew. He had 
long been secretly studying the Holy Scriptures, 
and a mighty yearning for the religion of his fore- 
fathers had taken possession of him. 

But no sooner did he reach Amsterdam than he 
discovered the religion of his brethren there was 
quite unlike the religion of his forefathers in Pales- 
tine. Hardly a trace of kinship was left between 
the two. The flaming faith of an Amos and a Jere- 
miah had died down to a smolder of petty law-keeping; 
the dreams of an Isaiah had been supplanted by the 
Shulchan Aruch. And a holy desire to reform the 
religion of his brethren was kindled in the heart of 
the young dreamer. Earnestly—and perhaps im- 
patiently—he attacked the travesty on true Juda- 
ism which obtained among the Jews around him. 

But those Jews were in no mood to allow any 
one to tamper with their hard-and-fast form of 
belief. Having suffered for it so many generations, 
they now insisted that it should be treated as per- 
fect and unchangeable. So the rabbis complained 
to the police, and Acosta was thrown into prison 
as a public enemy to all religion. He fled to Germany, 
and for nine years lived in coventry there. Finally 
he could stand it no longer, and he returned, a broken 
man, to Amsterdam and begged to be forgiven. 

He was readily taken back, and lived for a while 
at peace in the community. But then trouble began 
again. Acosta could not long remain a hypocrite 
and make a pretense of believing what he knew to 
be false and ridiculous. People began to complain 
to the rabbis that he was not observing all the laws of 
Judaism. He was summoned before the officials 


276 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


of the Synagogue and commanded to repent. And 
on his refusal he was excommunicated with awful 
oaths from the fold of Israel. 

Seven long years he suffered in silence. Even his 
nearest relatives refused to speak to him. And then 
for the second time his spirit caved in, and he sur- 
rendered. 

But this time he was not so readily taken back. 
First he had to make public confession of his sins 
in the crowded synagogue. Then he had to kneel 
and let his naked back be lashed thirty-nine times. 
Finally he had to prostrate himself on the threshold 
of that House of God and let himself be stepped 
over or trampled on by the mob. 

It was too much. The proud spirit of the hidalgo, 
Acosta, who had sacrificed everything to throw in 
his lot with the Jews, could not live on after so 
terrible a humiliation. He went home, wrote a brief 
sketch of his stormy life, and then shot himself. 


7 


But Acosta’s spirit of protest lived on after him. 
Hardly five years passed, and another young Jew 
was discovered to be a heretic. His name was 
Baruch Spinoza, and he seems to have belonged to 
one of the prominent Jewish families in Amsterdam. 
Born in 1632, he was reared in the religious school 
of the community. He studied the Bible and the 
Talmud, and toward the end of his course, the 
writings of the great Jewish scholars like Ibn Ezra 
and Maimonides. And also he studied Latin, the 
sciences, and medieval philosophy. 

This Baruch Spinoza was a brilliant lad, and 


IN HOLLAND 277 


no doubt his teachers looked upon him as a future 
leader in the community. But gradually the story 
was noised around that he was thinking free and 
heretical thoughts. He was not molested, however, 
until after his father’s death. Then he was brought 
before the officials of the synagogue to answer for 
his reputed heresies. And before those officials he 
freely admitted the truth of all that had been ru- 
mored about him. He did not believe in angels, or 
in heaven and hell, or in anything else that his 
reason declared impossible. 

The rabbis were horrified. It was not merely 
that they could not themselves tolerate this young 
man’s scorn of their beloved errors. It was more 
a terrible fear in them that if word of his heresies 
reached the Christian world, all the Jews might be 
made to suffer. 

First the officials tried to buy his silence; but 
Baruch nobly refused to be bought. So then they 
cut him off forever. A mere youth of twenty-three, 
he was excommunicated and driven from the city. 
And from that day to the day of his death, Baruch 
Spinoza never again was spoken to by a Jew. 

He wandered from one village to another, finally 
settling in The Hague. He earned a livelihood as an 
optician and lens-grinder; but most of his hours were 
spent in setting down his ideas about God, religion, 
and freedom. Learned Christians from many lands 
came to consult with him, or wrote to him on philo- 
sophic problems. And when he died at the age of 
forty-five, his lungs destroyed by the glass dust he 
had so long breathed at his daily toil, he was the 
most noted philosopher of his age. 


278 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


This Jew, Spinoza, had but resurrected and carried 
on the grand tradition of Maimonides. He had 
sought to base all his thinking on reason, not on 
faith. He had refused to believe what the men of 
the Church or Synagogue commanded. He had 
tried to think for himself. 

To-day no one remembers the names of the rabbis 
who hounded that young thinker out of Israel. 
But all our world knows the name of their victim. 
For he it was who helped lay the foundation of 
modern philosophy. He was one of the great light- 
bearers of human-kind, one of its immortal warriors 
against credulity and ignorance. 

The pious rabbis of his day branded Spinoza as 
an enemy and a betrayer of Israel. (Which is just 
what the ancient priests always thought of the 
prophets of their time.) But his whole life and 
labor proved him to be infinitely truer to the spirit 
of Israel than they. 

For Baruch Spinoza was a breaker of idols and a 
rebel against all them that would enshackle thought. 
He was a worker of Godly Mischief. In a very 
real sense he was the spirit of the Strange People 
incarnate. .. . 


CHAPTER XXXIV 
THE DARKNESS IN EASTERN EUROPE 


The Jews met with relatively little ill-treatment 
at the hands of the non-Jews in Holland and the 
West; but it was far different in the East. The 
princes of Poland, as we have already seen, had 
previously welcomed the Jews in their flight from 
mob-ridden Germany. ‘Those princes found them 
then of high value, for their activities brought com- 
merce and a measure of prosperity to the Polish 
provinces. And the Jews, glad to find refuge and 
asylum anywhere, came in ever increasing numbers. 
They spread out and multiplied until there was 
a Jewish colony in almost every town and village. 
They did not till the soil, for there were already too 
many native peasants for that sort of work. Instead, 
the Jews functioned as traders and_ professional 
men, and thus became the middle class of the land. 

That proved their undoing in the end. For gen- 
erations they managed to live on in fair comfort, 
wedging themselves ever more firmly in between the 
serfs and the lords. And then suddenly they dis- 
covered themselves imprisoned. They were caught 
between two millstones, so that at every approach 
of bad times they were crushed. Whenever the lower 
class was hungry or the upper class was bankrupt, 
the Jews who formed the middle class were ground. 

It was not until the middle of the seventeenth 


aSO00'T SYDIL_ YIDSsor) 48S 


STS 
LD 
ons Yr 


Ondowwis 


PF 


IN EASTERN EUROPE 281 


century that the Jews of Poland awakened to the 
dreadfulness of their position. In 1648 the Cos- 
sacks rebelled against their Polish overlords, and 
directed the brunt of their savage attack against 
the Jews. The Jews seemed to those Cossacks almost 
worse than the feudal princes, for they were the 
feudal agents and taxgatherers. The Jews, there- 
fore, were tortured and plundered; they were almost 
drowned in their own blood. Over a half-million 
of them lost their lives before the uprising was 
crushed. 

And that was but the beginning. From that day 
to this the Jews of Eastern Europe have known 
no rest. These upper and nether millstones have 
ground them, bled them, crushed them, generation 
after generation. For two hundred and twenty- 
five long and bloody years their life has been but a 
nightmare. 


2 


That explains why Eastern Europe became the 
center of the extremest Talmudism. When the 
Jews awakened to find themselves in a raging sea of 
hostility, they almost instinctively shot up their 
high wall of Law. And that wall became and re- 
mained the sole interest in their religious lives. 

This was especially true in the north in Lith- 
uania and what is called White Russia. Every 
male child from infancy was sent to the cheder, the 
‘“classroom,”’ to learn Hebrew. And almost as soon 
as it could read, its little body was taught to bend 
and sway over the huge volumes of the Talmud. 
Day and night the child was forced to freeze or 


282 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


swelter in the stuffy cheder while it learnt to repeat 
in a peculiar sing-song tone the arguments of the 
ancient rabbis. 

At thirteen each boy was confirmed, and he was 
then allowed to go to work if he had shown no 
particular diligence as a pupil. But very many of 
the boys went on with their studies. They went on 
to the yeshivah, the college, or in the smaller com- 
munities, to the bes ha-medresh, the house of learn- 
ing. These boys were usually supported by the com- 
munity, getting their meals each day in a different 
home, and sleeping on the hard benches in the study 
room. Until they were seventeen or eighteen they 
lived in that way; and then often they were married 
off to the daughters of wealthy Jews and were sup- 
ported in the yeshivah perhaps for the rest of their 
lives by their fathers-in-law. 

They never studied anything but the Talmud. 
The reading of a book of poetry, or science, or phi- 
losophy—especially one written in any but the 
sacred tongue—was considered a most serious crime. 
The students learnt only how to split hairs—how to 
divide and mangle and shred every little Talmudic 
rule so as to make a dozen new rules out of it. 

Twice a year great fairs were held in the land, 
and along with the traders who came to them to 
exhibit their wares, came also the students to show 
off their cleverness. While the traders from different 
towns haggled with each other over prices, the stu- 
dents from different yeshivos disputed over Talmudic 
verses. And before the fair was over, the wealth- 
iest traders picked the most brilliant students, and 
took them home to marry their daughters or sisters. 


IN EASTERN EUROPE 283 


The old Jewish idea that the only genuine aris- 
tocracy is that of brains, was unchallenged among 
them. The scholar was the lord supreme. Every- 
thing—not alone wealth and station, but also native 
kindness of heart and even character—was counted 
far less important than learning. 


3 


This idolization of learning was not so intense, 
however, among the Jews in the southern provinces— 
in Poland, Galicia, and Ukrainia. There too the 
cheder and bes ha-medresh existed in every town and 
village; and there too learning was highly respected. 
But it was not looked on as the one thing exclusively 
worth respecting. 

There was a marked difference in psychological 
background between the Jew of Poland and his 
brother in Lithuania. In Poland and the southern 
provinces generally, the emotions were esteemed and 
considered more important than mere intellect. The 
Jews there were more interested in extracting a 
wealth of feeling from their religion, than in pro- 
ducing by much thinking a host of arguments in its 
favor. Perhaps that explains why to this day the 
vast majority of the artists, writers, actors, and 
musicians among the East-European Jews, come 
from those southern provinces; while the astutest 
lawyers and keenest scientists among them, usually 
come from Lithuania. 

No one can tell for certain how this difference 
arose. Perhaps it was due to the greater admixture 
of rich Tartar blood in the veins of the Jews in the 
south. Perhaps in that region more intermarriages 


34.—Eastern Europe 


IN EASTERN EUROPE 285 


had taken place with the descendants of the Khazars. 

Whatever the cause may have been, however, 
the contrast was unmistakable. The Polish Jews 
could not and did not try to forget all their woes in 
dull Talmudic disputations. They preferred a game 
that gave their imaginations rather than their wits 
a chance to gambol and frolic. So while the norther- 
ners, the ‘‘Litvaks,”’ patiently spun their holy 
rules, the southerners played with incantations and 
magic spells. While the Lithuanians set their 
minds to the task of boring through the Talmud, 
the Polish and Galician Jews let their fancies run 
riot in the Cabala. 

In a way the difference between the two regions 
was strikingly like the difference between old Judea 
with its scholarly Pharisees and Galilee with its 
mystical Essenes. .. . 

Naturally enough it was in the southern provinces 
of Eastern Europe that the ache for a miraculous 
Deliverer was keenest. The least rumor of the 
appearance of a new Messiah swept through the 
Jewish population there like the wind. The boom 
of Sabbatai Zevi carried them literally to the verge 
of hysteria. Even the disgraceful collapse of the 
boom, did not cure them altogether. Not for another 
century, indeed, were they cured. 

It was another low impostor, a man very like 
Sabbatai, only even more impudent, who finally 
cured them. The rascal was named Jacob Frank, 
and he appeared in 1755 and declared himself the 
reborn Sabbatai Zevi. And many hundreds there 
were who believed him and flocked to his support. 
The second coming of Sabbatai seemed quite as 


286 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


credible to them as the second coming of Jesus still 
seems to millions of Christians to-day. 

The coming of Frank caused a furor that shook 
all of East-European Jewry. The rabbis denounced 
him violently, especially in the shrewd, level-headed 
north; but nevertheless, his following grew. 

Then, suddenly, like a pricked balloon, the furor 
collapsed. Four years after Frank first put forward 
his claims, he and his followers found themselves 
caught fast in the talons of the Church. And just 
as the Sabbataians, to save their lives, became Mo- 
hammedans, so the Frankists now became Christians. 

That brought the Jews abruptly to their senses. 
Twice within a century they had seen great and 
much-vaunted ‘ Messiahs’”’ end up as cowardly 
apostates. Twice they had been duped. 

They never were duped again. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


THE STORY OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD OF POLAND 
WHO WAS CALLED BAAL SHEM TOV 


But the old hunger for religious excitement still 
lived among the Jews of Poland and Galicia. Strug- 
gling along in the semi-darkness behind their frown- 
ing rampart of Law, they had not lost their craving 
for the coming of a man who could bring them the 
sun. 

And at last such a man came. 

His name was Israel ben Eliezer, but the people 
soon learnt to call him Baal Shem Tov, ‘‘The Kind 
Master of God’s Name.” A strange and wondrous 
man was he—one who in his whole life and work 
seems to have been a true brother to that other 
‘‘Kind Master,” Jesus of Nazareth. And like Jesus, 
very little is definitely known about Baal Shem 
Tov, for he too left no writings. Only naive and 
confused legends remain to tell us of his life, and it 
is not easy to decide just what in them is fact and 
what is fancy. 

He was born in one of the southern provinces 
about the year 1700, and was left an orphan at an 
early age. Kindly townsfolk tried to rear him, send- 
ing him to cheder with their own children. But he 
was a difficult lad to bring up. He was forever 
playing truant, and wandering off alone to the 
woods. He was always dreaming—of just what, 


288 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


no one could find out. And he simply would not 
apply himself to his Talmudic studies. So indolent 
a student was he indeed, that finally he was expelled 
from the cheder and told to go and find work. 

He was then a grown man of twelve, and he found 
a job as a helper in a cheder. He taught the little 
tots the alphabet; and part of his duty was to take 
them to and from the school. (The word ‘‘peda- 
gogue”’ originally meant a Greek slave who used to 
do just such work in ancient Athens.) Then, when 
he grew older, he became the shamosh, the sexton, 
of a synagogue. 

People did not know just what to make of him, 
he was so eccentric in his conduct. He would sleep 
most of the day, and spend the nights alone in the 
synagogue, where he would pray with terrible fer- 
vor. He would sway to and fro, shouting loudly 
and seeming in a trance half the time. Or else he 
would sit up and pore over huge volumes of Cabala. 

For many years he lived in a lone village near the 
Carpathian Mountains where he eked out a living for 
himself and his wife as a clay digger. For a while 
he was a tavern-keeper, then a village Hebrew 
teacher, and then a shamosh again. 


2 


And then all of a sudden he started out among the 
people as a self-appointed magic healer, a baal- 
shem, a ‘“‘Master of God’s Name.” Many other 
such healers were wandering about the countryside 
of Poland and Galicia at the time. They all claimed 
to be able to do wonders and work miracles with the 
aid of God’s secret name. They were supposed to 


BAAL SHEM TOV 289 


be able to cure diseases, cast out demons, foretell 
the future, and perform other such marvels for the 
superstitious folk. 

But in one respect this Israel was quite unlike the 
other ‘‘healers.”” There was a kindliness about him, 
a saintliness that fast won him to the hearts of the 
downecast Jews. He was not at all like the ordinary 
baal-shem, who mumbled incantations for money. 
He never once asked for pay and he helped every- 
where. There was a godly light in his eye and a 
godly sincerity in his heart. The people saw that 
he came and spent himself for them only because 
he truly loved them. 

That explains why they called him ‘‘Baal Shem 
Tov,” ‘‘the Kind Master of God’s Name.” Even 
Christian peasants were among those who came to 
him with woes and wounds for him to heal. 

At first the orthodox Cabalists probably looked 
down on him as once the Pharisees had looked down 
on that other kindly healer, Jesus. And from first 
to last the aristocratic Talmudists of the north 
hated him as the aristocratic Sadducees had hated 
the Nazarene. But the simple folk, the tailors and 
the cobblers, the teamsters and the tavern-keepers— 
they and their sickly wives and their anamic chil- 
dren all believed in Baal Shem Tov, and worshiped 
him. 

And from him they learnt to look on the world 
in a new way. God, he told them, was everywhere 
and in everything—not alone in the synagogues, 
but also in the muddy roadways, the foul villages, 
in every dreary moment of their daily toil. So 
everywhere they could pray to Him and find Him. 


290 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


And it was their duty to pray to Him wherever they 
might be—to count every moment holy. Not by 
praying at certain fixed times in a certain fixed way, 
could they be true Jews, but only by making all their 
lives a prayer. So declared Baal Shem Tov. 
Fundamentally that was the valid element in the 
theory underlying all of Cabala. But Baal Shem Tov 
added to it a peculiarly attractive note of his own. 
He proclaimed that one’s life must not be a sad or 
mournful prayer, but emphatically a gay and joyous 
one. Only thus could it be acceptable to God. 
Now the ordinary Cabalist did not think this at 
all. He was rather afraid of God, and usually in- 
clined to sidle up to him with a long, tearful face. 
That is why he believed in long fasting, great mourn- 
ing, and fearful conjuring with magic words. He 
imagined it was the only way to secure God’s favor. 
But Baal Shem Tov declared that every one should 
whole-heartedly love God, and not be at all afraid 
of Him. No one should go to meet Him with tears 
and terror, but only with laughter and song. In 
prayer, one should not whisper, but shout and dance; 
in life one should not fast, but feast and make merry. 


3 


So did this new prophet assure the humble folk of 
Poland—and they believed him. They believed 
because they wanted to believe. Baal Shem Tov 
with this new doctrine of his, made their life worth 
living. He gave them back the right to laugh— 
a right they had not dared to exercise in many long 
dark centuries. He insisted that they sing and be 
happy. He brought back the sun to them. 


BAAL SHEM TOV 291 


So they listened to him intently and believed and 
obeyed him. He spoke in simple parables that they 
could understand without difficulty. And he healed 
them when they came to him, and comforted them 
in all their distresses. He drew no distinctions 
between rich and poor, between learned and ig- 
norant. All were equal in his eyes, for all were 
equally part of the great God he loved. 

Never did he speak of himself as the Messiah, 
however. On the contrary he was forever insisting 
that only when all Israel loved God truly would the 
Messiah come. He called himself merely a tzaddik, 
a ‘‘Righteous Man,” and his followers he called 
chassidim, ‘‘Pious Ones.” Every chassid, if he were 
but sufficiently earnest in his piety, could become a 
tzaddik. The difference was not one of kind but of 
degree. The tzaddik because of his tremendous 
piety was nearer the heart of God, and could under- 
stand God’s intentions and interpret them to the 
folk. He was, as it were, a connecting link between 
God and the ordinary man. 

Such was the gist of the teaching of that queer, 
lovable, loving mystic whom the people called 
Baal Shem Tov. For many years he taught it to 
the people, and spread it all through the land. 

And when the kind baal-shem passed away he 
left that teaching as his legacy to comfort his breth- 
ren in Israel. 


+ 


But they that came after Baal Shem Tov and 
undertook to carry on his mission, were smaller and 
less exalted men. Either they had not righly under- 


292 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


stood him, or they had understood and did not 
care to obey. For at their hands the noble belief 
of Baal Shem Tov sank from a prophetic yearning 
to a priestly cult. It became but a low means of 
personal enrichment for those who set themselves 
up as tzaddikim. 

The leading disciples of Baal Shem Tov were 
the first tzaddikim, and after them others arose. 
They passed themselves off as professional holy 
men, and commanded the plain people to support 
them. And the plain people, being simple and super- 
stitious, obeyed. They gave their last pennies 
to the tzaddik of their district—the ‘‘Gitter Yid,” 
the ‘‘Good Jew,” as they usually called him in 
Yiddish—and out of these he grew wealthy. He 
lived very much like a Polish. prince, surrounded 
by a court of helpers and favorites. He had a 
palace, a stable of fine horses, and a cellar filled with 
the costliest wines. And in time a tradition arose 
that only the son of a tzaddik could be a tzaddik— 
that holiness was confined to a certain few families. 


5 


Of course, the rabbis of Lithuania attacked these 
tzaddikim and the whole Chassidic movement. 
They excommunicated its preachers, and when 
they found that was of no avail, they even had them 
imprisoned by the civil authorities. Perhaps it 
was asking too much to expect them to understand 
the great hunger inspiring and sustaining the new 
movement. Those northern rabbis, staid and 
severe in all their thoughts and deeds, were shocked 
at the gay spirit of the chassidim. Especially were 


BAAL SHEM TOV 293 


they scandalized by the amount of gay drinking 
that was common among the members of the new 
sect at their many festivals. And perhaps, too, 
those northern rabbis were human enough to be a 
little jealous of the enormous power of the popular 
tzaddikim. 

But despite all the opposition, the new movement 
lived and prospered. While it did not spread much 
beyond the borders of the southern provinces, 
Poland and Galicia, inside of these it became su- 
preme. The few misnaggedim, ‘‘opponents,” who 
persisted there, were accorded scant tolerance in- 
deed. 

To this day Chassidism is supreme in those prov- 
inces. There are still tzaddikim to be found there, 
trying to live off the starving Jewish masses. And 
many of them have come to America, here to live 
off the immigrants from those provinces. They 
can sometimes be seen to this day in the larger 
American cities: long-bearded men with curly 
locks hanging down over their temples. They dress 
usually in fine silk gaberdines, black during the 
week, but a spotless white on the Sabbath. They 
wear their trousers stuck into their long stockings, 
probably because in the time of their great-great- 
grandfathers it was the fashion to wear knicker- 
bockers. Their heads are covered with huge, round 
fur hats. And for a little gift they will shower you 
with blessings and promise that your every wish 
will be fulfilled. 

So low as that has the teaching of Baal Shem Tov 
baller: o. 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


THE DAWN OF TOLERANCE IN EUROPE, AND 
WHAT IT WON FOR THE JEWS 


In the middle of the eighteenth century it was 
still Night; and it seemed as dark as ever it had been 
in Jewish history. Persecutions were not so bloody 
as in earlier years; but they were still cruel and 
embittering. The world had outgrown its savagery 
a little, and no longer lashed the body of the Jew. 
But it still sought to crush his spirit. 

That explains why the Jew cut himself off from 
the world. He hid behind his high wall, and created 
there a life all his own. Necessarily it was a narrow 
and ingrown life: an unhealthy groping in the Tal- 
mud, or a piteous groveling at the feet of the tzaddik. 
But at least it was life, not death. 

Soon, however, the light of the Dawn began almost 
imperceptibly to creep up over the horizon. A new 
spirit stole its way into the heart of the world, and 
of a sudden whisperings were heard of a strange 
thing called Tolerance. It was as if mankind were 
emerging from a stupor. The world sat up in aching 
bewilderment and wondered what could have pos- 
sessed it all these years. Men began all at once to 
realize that ‘‘differentness’” was not necessarily 
sinful! They began to see that human beings were 
human beings, no matter what their race, or religion, 


THE DAWN OF TOLERANCE 295 


or station in life. In America, revolutionists were 
declaring that men are created free and equal. In 
France they were crying ‘‘Liberty, Fraternity, 
Equality!”’ 

The world was waking up. 


2 


Of course it was the Jew who benefited most 
markedly by the change. 

In 1782 the emperor Joseph II of Austria passed 
the famous ‘‘Edict of Toleration’? which abolished 
the wearing of the badge of shame by the Jew, 
and also the insulting poll-tax. And then in 1791, 
France went further and abolished all laws against 
the Jew. For the first time, in all the history of 
Europe, the Jew was put on a footing of equality 
before the law with other men. 

Holland followed in 1796, and even Prussia, one 
of the most reactionary of all the European lands, 
finally began to grant civil rights to the Jews in 
1812. 

The Era of Emancipation had at last set in for the 
long outlawed people. Ghetto walls were torn down 
and with them the ghetto fears. Stooped shoulders 
straightened themselves a little, and downcast eyes 
now began to look straight forward. At last the 
Jew became a citizen of the world. 

And hard on the awakening of the world came the 
awakening of the Jew. Indeed, almost before the 
first gleam of Dawn had shot its advancing spears 
up over the horizon, a few—a very few—among the 
Jews were already craning their necks over their wall 
to welcome the light. 


296 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


3 


Most prominent among the awakening Jews was 
a sickly hunchback who stands out as one of the 
real heroes in the history of his people. The life of 
this hunchback, Moses Mendelssohn, reads strikingly 
like fiction. He was born in 1729, the son of a poor 
Torah-scribe in Germany. At the age of fourteen 
he tramped on foot to Berlin, to continue his educa- 
tion there. For years he starved and studied. And 
then slowly he began to climb to the heights. Lessing, 
who was one of the foremost dramatists of the day, 
became his intimate friend. (‘‘Nathan the Wise,” 
a popular play by Lessing, was written around the 
gentle character of the hunchback; and in its day 
it exercised a profound effect in softening Christian 
prejudice against the Jew.) And Emanuel Kant, 
the greatest of German philosophers, gave Mendels- 
sohn his genuine admiration. (He had once been 
defeated by the Jew in a prize essay competition 
held by the Berlin Academy of Sciences!) 

And the whole world stared in amazement. The 
acceptance of a professing Jew into the highest 
literary and scientific circles of the land, had never 
been dreamed of as possible before the coming of 
this man. And slowly, reluctantly, the world began 
to reverse itself and revise its opinion of the alien 
tribe. It began to concede that ay least some Jews 
might be acceptable. 

But Mendelssohn was not content with that par- 
tial concession. He desired that all Jews should be 
considered eligible. Yet he was not blind. He 
saw only too well that the vast majority of his 


THE DAWN OF TOLERANCE 297 


brethren hardly deserved to be graded as more than 
aliens. The terrors of the Night had put them four 
hundred years behind the times. Their rabbis, 
themselves products of benighted yeshivos in Lithu- 
ania, had kept them in ignorance of all save the 
Talmud and the Shulchan-Aruch. Even though their 
ancestors for centuries had lived in the land, they 
knew little German. They spoke only the ghetto 
jargon, that lawless mixture of ungrammatical 
German and mispronounced Hebrew which later 
came to be called Yiddish. 

So Mendelssohn set himself to the task of stirring 
his brethren out of their four-hundred-year slumber. 


4 


It was far from an easy task, for many there were 
who did not wish to be stirred. They had dozed 
off beneath their smothering blankets, and they 
asked only to be let alone. But Moses Mendelsshon 
would not heed that request. With patient but 
firm hands he began stripping off the ancient and 
moldy coverings. 

He translated the Scriptures into pure German 
so that his Ghetto brethren might learn at last the 
language of the people around them. And even more 
important, he edited a new commentary that was 
printed together with the translation. Scores of 
commentaries had already been written on the 
Scriptures, but almost all of them were filled with 
distinctions that were far-fetched or stupid, and 
that confused the meaning of the Holy Writ rather 
than made it clear. Only Ibn Ezra’s commentary 
had previously made any genuine attempt to be 


298 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


critical and intelligent; and that was already an- 
tiquated. So Mendelssohn found himself simply 
compelled to edit the new commentary. 

And when in the year 1783 the ‘‘Mendelssohn 
Bible”? was completed and published, it caused great 
excitement. The old-fashioned rabbis violently com- 
bated it and commanded their followers not to 
dare to look at it. They feared that the German 
translation might lead the Jews to forget their 
Hebrew altogether; and they were certain the new 
commentary would lessen the respect for all the 
old laws that had been read into and foisted upon 
the Scriptures. 

But the earnest little scholar was not daunted. 
He refused to stop long enough to engage in argument 
with his opponents. He simply went on with his 
Godly Mischief. Very like his idol, old Maimonides, 
he tried to give a rationalistic explanation of Juda- 
ism. He did his best to make the religion of his 
people seem reasonable in the eyes of free-thinking 
and critical men. Of course, that meant stripping 
off a great deal of the superstition and protective 
ignorance in which the Talmudists and Cabalists 
had wrapped their faith. And consequently it 
meant the incurring of more hostility from the or- 
thodox. 


5 


But nevertheless Mendelssohn went on with his 
work, never pausing even to the day of his death. 
And when he died others were forthcoming to take 
up the work after him. A new generation of Jews 
arose, thanks to Mendelssohn’s labors, and it proved 


THE DAWN OF TOLERANCE 299 


to be a generation readier to meet the Dawn that 
just then was breaking. In many lands Jews began 
to look out over their imprisoning wall. The idea of 
translating the Bible into the vernacular of the land 
became common throughout Europe. Dutch, Eng- 
lish, Italian, and other versions appeared in rapid 
succession, all of them written by Jews and for Jews. 

The movement spread even to Poland and Russia. 
It was called there the Haskala, the “Enlightenment,” 
and it stormed the gloomy yeshivos and chedarim 
much as the Renaissance had stormed the Christian 
colleges and monasteries four hundred years earlier. 
Jewish humanists arose, earnest scholars who sought 
with all their might to pull the weeds that had sprung 
up in Jewish thought and practice. 

Hebrew began to flourish again—not the corrupt 
and distorted Hebrew of the Talmudists, but the 
ringing, exalted Hebrew of the Prophets. And it 
was used now not to write more codes of Law or 
new blatherings of Cabala, but poems and novels and 
essays of real worth. 

Along with the rebirth of Hebrew literature, 
a Yiddish literature came quite unexpectedly to 
birth. The brawling, ill-sounding gibberish of the 
ghetto somehow accomplished the miraculous, and 
became a genuinely literary language. Poetry, fic- 
tion, and drama of high quality were written in it. 

Thus the Jewish scholars were provided three 
different ways of approaching their brethren. They 
could use the language of the land—German, Dutch, 
or whatever it was—or they could use Hebrew 
or Yiddish. And since even the humblest Jew 
could usually read at least one of these languages, 


300 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


the ideas of the scholars were able to spread. Still 
no lowering of the high wall of Law around the Jew 
had taken place; but gradually there began a mighty 
straining to clamber over the wall, or at least to 
climb to the top and peer out at the new Dawn. 

Gradually, very gradually, the Jew began to look 
out again at the world. 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN ALL THE NA- 
TIONS, AND HOW IT DESTROYED THE WALL OF 
THE GHETTO 


Dawn broke in the last years of the eighteenth 
century. Moses Mendelssohn, who died in 1786, 
saw no more than the first shafts of the light. But 
the next generation actually felt the warmth of the 
rising sun. Napoleon and his victorious armies 
had largely destroyed the wall of the Ghetto. Only 
the wall of the Law was left; and the new generation 
by standing on the ‘Mendelssohn Bible,” could 
look right out over that wall with little difficulty. 

So now at last the outside world was revealed to 
the Jews in all its inviting splendor. It was a vast 
world full of exciting uniforms, romantic titles, 
enormous fortunes, and enticing honors. The very 
sight of it set the blood pounding in their veins. 
At last they were free to take part in that world. 
At last they were—emancipated. 


2 


But they were mistaken. They had no more than 
ventured out into that sun-lit world, when utter 
darkness closed down on them again. The sun 
disappeared. The Dawn of a sudden sank back into 
Night. 

For reaction had followed revolution. Napoleon 


302 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


had been defeated; his empire had been destroyed. 
And the nations of Europe had immediately re- 
bounded to their old ways. Some immediately 
repealed all the laws granting the Jews full freedom; 
and others simply forgot they had ever passed such 
laws. In Rome the rule of the pope was reinstated, 
and all the old oppressive measures were put in 
force again. In Germany there were even whole- 
sale massacres and expulsions. 

Thus the Jews, who but a few years earlier had 
escaped from the Ghetto, now discovered them- 
selves being forced back there again. And they 
were most unwilling to go. They had already 
played in the world of the Gentiles, and it was not 
easy for them to leave it. Indeed, many of them 
were ready to surrender everything, even their names 
and their faith, rather than lose that Gentile world. 

So throughout Western Europe there was a great 
flocking of Jews to the baptismal font. One after 
another the most learned and prominent among them 
fell away to Christianity. In England the descend- 
ants of the very Maranos who had braved all the 
tortures of the Inquisition for the sake of their 
religion, now sidled into the Church for the sake of 
retaining political equality. In Berlin one-third 
of the entire Jewish population—and the most 
cultured third—turned apostate. Moses Mendels- 
sohn’s own children were the leaders among the 
deserters. . .. 


3 


It was not at all from choice and real change of 
heart that the Jews deserted. Their intolerable 


THE GHETTO WALL CRUMBLES — 303 


position drove them to it. There they were, men 
and women steeped in the highest culture of the 
age, leaders in thought and society, yet at the same 
time political outcasts. Simply because they called 
themselves Jews, the world called them aliens. 
They could not enter many of the professions; they 
could not hold office; they could not even vote. As 
one of them, Heinrich Heine, the great German 
poet, said bitterly: ‘‘If the law had permitted the 
stealing of silver spoons, I should never have been 
baptized.” 

So they ceased to call themselves Jews. With a 
sneer or a leer on their lips, they had themselves 
sprinkled with holy water—and then proceeded 
to call themselves Christians. 

Very soon, however, they discovered that despite 
the holy water, they were still counted aliens. Only 
in the sight of the law had they become Prussians, 
or Austrians, or Englishmen; in the sight of men they 
were still Jews. Even though they could, as Chris- 
tians, hold office and enter the professions, the Chris- 
tian world still discriminated against them. Perhaps 
the best known instance is Benjamin D’Israeli (Lord 
Beaconsfield), who was always attacked as a Jew, 
even though he had been baptized in infancy, and 
was all his days a conforming Christian. 

So slowly the truth dawned on the apostates that 
they could not elude the prejudice of the Christians 
by deserting their fellow-Jews. For their fellow-Jews 
simply could not be deserted. One seemed shackled 
forever to the people among whom one had been 
born. Once a Jew, always a Jew! 

And with the realization of that truth, a new 


304 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


spirit took possession of the hearts of many of the 
apostates. Since they could not gain freedom by 
flight, they determined to wrest it by battle. They 
went back to their as yet unbaptized brethren, and 
standing shoulder to shoulder with them, they 
tried to force the world to accord them their human 
rights. They no longer tried in some cowardly 
way to change themselves; instead they tried fun- - 
damentally to change the world. 

And thus was the Jew brought to enlist in the 
modern revolutionary movement. 


4 


It was not difficult for the Jew to enter the rev- 
olutionary movement. He was a rebel by herit- 
age. From the time of the ancient Prophets, all 
his ancestors had been ‘“‘troublers’” and revolu- 
tionists. The spirit of protest, the hunger for some- 
thing better, had always been part of his life. 

He had no hand in the earlier revolution—the 
one that brought on the short-lived Dawn enjoyed 
by his people at the end of the eighteenth century. 
(That had been kindled in France, and the few Jews 
then in the land had been poor pedlars or shop- 
keepers.) But in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, 
the Jews was in the very thick of the fighting. 

Many Jewish names stand out prominently in 
those history-making revolutions. There are first 
of all the names of several Berlin Jewesses, Henri- 
etta Herz, Rahel Levin, and Moses Mendelssohn’s 
daughters. The homes of these women were centers 
of the cultured life of Mid-Europe—and at the 
same time centers of its liberal and revolutionary 


THE GHETTO WALL CRUMBLES — 305 


thought. Almost every great man of the period— 
for instance, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Victor Hugo, 
and Schlegel—seems to have made the acquaintance 
of these Jewesses at one time or another. 

Then, of course, there are Ludwig Borne and 
Heinrich Heine, two men who by their merciless 
wit and sarcasm became leaders among the revolu- 
tionist writers. Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, 
Johann Jacoby, Gabriel Riesser, Adolphe Cre- 
mieux, Signora Nathan—all these of Jewish lineage 
played important rdles in the social struggle that 
went on throughout Europe in this period. Wherever 
the war for human liberty was being waged, whether 
in France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, or Italy, 
there the Jew was to be found. It was little wonder 
that the enemies of social progress, the monarchists 
and the Churchmen, came to speak of the whole 
liberal movement as nothing but a Jewish plot. 


5 


Of course, the liberal movement was far more than 
that. Essentially it was a heroic effort to drive 
away the Darkness and cast out its lords. It was 
a movement to crush the tyrants so that the people 
might be free. It was the Protestant Reformation 
in the world of politics. 

Incidentally, however, it brought complete re- 
lease at last to the Jew. Within a generation after 
1848 there was hardly a country in Europe—save 
Russia—where in the eyes of the law the Jew was 
not accorded complete equality with all other men. 

In Norway even temporary residence had always 
been forbidden to Jews; but complete freedom was 


306 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


granted in 1851. For over a century the Jews had 
been fighting in England for the right to sit in Par- 
liament—and the way was at last cleared in 1858. 
Nine years later, Austria removed all Jewish dis- 
abilities. Two years after that, Germany did like- 
wise. The next year the ghetto gates in Rome were 
torn down. 

And so one land after the other finally granted 
the Jew his rights as a citizen. To be sure, they were 
granted to him only reluctantly. He was still ‘‘dif- 
ferent’? and the world still could not quite forgive 
him for it. In almost every land he had to fight 
long and bitterly before full freedom was given to 
him in practice. 

But finally he triumphed. 

And then the long Night seemed to be at an end 
forever. The New Day had really dawned now, 
and the Jew was free at last. 

At least, so he imagined. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 


THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM IN JUDAISM, AND 
HOW IT BEGAN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WALL 
OF LAW 


And while one army of Jews was struggling to 
destroy the wall of the ghetto, another was striving 
just as strenuously to lower the wall of Law. It 
is usually said that Moses Mendelssohn was the 
leader of this second army; but that is hardly true. 
Mendelssohn never entertained the intention of 
lowering the wall of Law. His whole aim had been 
merely to supply a ladder by which his fellow-Jews 
could climb up and peer over the wall. To the 
very end he had himself scrupulously kept the laws 
of the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch. He had freed 
himself only in thought. In practice he had re- 
mained altogether orthodox. 

Undoubtedly that explains why the next genera- 
tion so readily fell away to Christianity. Mendels- 
sohn had fondly imagined his followers, after he had 
helped them to the top of the wall, would be con- 
tent to do as he had done. He had imagined they 
would be content merely to look at the outside world. 

That was his fatal mistake. Of course it was im- 
possible for them to rest content with merely looking. 
Soon, very soon, they were burning with the desire 
to leap off and take active part in the carnival. 

And they did. The moment Mendelssohn’s steady- 


308 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


ing hand was removed, off they toppled like so 
many Humpty-Dumpties. And then not all the 
king’s horses nor all the king’s men could put them 
back over the wall again. For once having danced 
in the sun of the open world, they would not go 
back to grope and stumble again in the gloom of the 
prison yard. No matter what it cost them, they 
would not go back. 


2 


During the first years of the nineteenth century, 
when the followers of Mendelssohn first slipped down 
off the wall of Law into the great open world out- 
side, there was little said. They disappeared so 
quietly that their fellow-Jews behind the wall hardly 
noticed what had happened. But with the reaction 
following the defeat of Napoleon, and the re-establish- 
ment of the ghettos, the sweep of apostacy became 
an open scandal. For the Jews who had slipped 
away, now discovered themselves trapped in a 
sort of No-Man’s land. In front was the rampart 
of the ghetto shutting them off from the world; 
in their rear the rampart of the Law. And they had 
to make an open choice between the two. 

Now although the rampart of the ghetto was high, 
cut into it was a wide and inviting gateway. And 
though it was a Church gateway guarded by a 
crucifix, nevertheless it was attractive, for it led out 
into the world. The rampart of the Law, on the 
other hand, had no breach in it whatsoever. Only 
by clambering back over its very top could one get 
back within its protection. And when one got there, 
only the gloom of the prison yard was the reward. 


THE WALL OF LAW CRUMBLES _ 309 


So hundreds of Jews in making their choice between 
the two walls, turned to the one with the wide 
gateway. ‘There was an epidemic of baptisms in 
Western Europe in the period from 1815 to 1848. 
And that epidemic shocked Western Jewry into 
wakefulness. It was evident that something drastic 
had to be done, and done immediately. Young Jews 
—and usually the most cultured and gifted in their 
communities—were still balking at the wall of 
Law and being forced over to the Church gateway. 
It was clear that the wall would have to be lowered 
at once, and the prison yard made more attractive, 
if the best blood in Jewry was to be saved. 

And thus arose the Reform Movement in Judaism. 


3 


Already for over a generation brilliant Jewish 
scholars in Germany had been busily laying the 
foundation for that movement. They had been 
investigating scientifically the vast rampart by 
which the Jews had walled themselves in. Then 
they had gone further, and made a critical survey 
also of all the life going on behind the rampart. A 
new field of research had come into being—the 
Science of Judaism it was called—and learned Jews 
had been laboring on its problems for several years. 

As a result, it had become more or less possible 
to begin the Reformation. It was tentatively known 
what was ancient and fundamental in Judaism, and 
what was recent and unimportant. So the reformers 
set to work. 

At first they centered their attention on the 
synagogue ritual, seeking to simplify and beautify 


310 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


it. Rabbi after rabbi for eighteen hundred years 
had been adding to the length of the services.. The 
prayers were all recited in Hebrew or Aramaic, 
so that exceedingly few of the Jews understood what 
was said. In fact, with its Oriental chanting and 
its noise and confusion, the whole ritual had grown 
foreign and unattractive. 

A new generation of Jews was arising in Germany, 
a generation that had been out in the world and had 
come to admire certain of its fashions. It was no 
longer Oriental, but Occidental—Western! It no 
longer felt at home in a house of prayer where the 
men, clad like desert wanderers in head-coverings 
and vast striped shawls, sat in the main pews, while 
the women, like harem slaves, sat hidden behind a 
thick curtain in a little back-room or up in a gallery! 

So in Hamburg and other cities new synagogues 
using a modernized ritual began to appear. Prayers 
were recited partly in German; an organ was used; 
mixed choirs replaced the old-fashioned cantor; men 
and women sat together in family pews; and no noise 
or conversation was permitted during the services. 


4 


Of course, a storm of protest went up from the 
orthodox, and there ensued a war very much like 
that now raging in the Church between the Modern- 
ists and the Fundamentalists. Attempts were 
made by orthodox rabbis to excommunicate the 
daring reformers. But Jewry had advanced too 
far for that. The leaders in the new movement— 
for the most part, rabbis themselves—were reviled 
and denounced and opposed and threatened. But 


THE WALL OF LAW CRUMBLES _ 3ll 


they were not driven from the fold. The mistake 
that had been made eleven hundred years earlier, 
when the Karaites were cast out, and seventeen 
hundred years earlier, when the Nazarenes were 
cut off, was not repeated. 

And the reformers went on with their work. Their 
movement, which was confined at first to Germany, 
began to spread to England and other lands. Es- 
pecially it spread to America, where through the 
energy and ability of young immigrant rabbis from 
Germany—most prominently, Isaac M. Wise—it 
became almost dominant in Jewish life. ; 


5 


Changes in ritual, however, were but the be- 
ginning. Soon far more drastic reforms followed. 
Judaism in its entire practice was liberalized and 
brought into harmony with the life of the day. 
The Shulchan Aruch, the Talmud, even sections 
of the Torah, were laid aside as law-codes that had 
long outlived their usefulness. The dietary laws 
were held to be no longer binding, and the rabbinic 
regulations concerning marriage and divorce gave 
way to the civil regulations of the land. The whole 
aim was to free the Jew, to level the high rampart 
of Law, so that his going out into the world would 
not necessarily mean deserting Jewry. During: the 
long Night the protecting rampart of Law had been 
terribly necessary; but now that Day had dawned, 
it was seen to be only a hindrance. 

For by the time these major changes were put on 
trial by the Reformers, Day had indeed dawned. 
The wall of the ghetto it seemed had been razed to 


312 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


the ground forever, and the Jew had become a citizen 
of the world. He no longer had need of ramparts 
to protect him from his enemies. His enemies were 
gone. Peace covered the earth as the waters covered 
the sea, and all bigotry, hatred, and stupidity had 
been banished forever and aye. 

At least, so thought the Reformers in that ecstatic 
hour of release. 


6 


And thinking so, they went on even to new ex- 
tremes with their work. They sought to revolu- 
tionize the whole traditional outlook of the Jew. 

During twenty-four hundred years the eyes of the 
Jew had been turned yearningly toward Jerusalem. 
All those years he had been clinging stubbornly 
to one hope—that the Messiah would some day 
come and lead him back to his holy land. 

The great Prophets who were the first to con- 
ceive the dream of an ‘‘ Anointed One,” had hardly 
been in agreement as to just what was to be His 
nature. Some—for instance, Isaiah, and Haggai— 
considered Him a person, a descendant of the royal 
house of David, who would restore the people to 
their home, inaugurate there a reign of perfect 
justice, and be called the Prince of Peace. Others— 
for instance, the Unknown Prophet of the Babylo- 
nian Exile—seem rather to have considered Him 
a spirit. With them He was a great hunger for Right, 
for world-wide Justice and Peace—a hunger em- 
bodied in Israel, and one that would be appeased 
only when Israel and its ideals of Right and Justice 
and Peace were triumphant. 


THE WALL OF LAW CRUMBLES © 318 


Later writers, embittered by continued oppression, 
were drawn of course to the former conception. It 
- was far more satisfying to their bruised and persecuted 
souls. So they made it the center of all their thinking. 

This dream of a personal Messiah ran something 
like this: In God’s own good time a wondrous 
Person would suddenly appear and miraculously 
destroy all Israel’s enemies. Then He would gather 
the Jews from the four corners of the earth, and 
mounted on a white ass or a lion, He would lead 
them back in triumph to the Holy Land. There 
they would be joined by all the righteous souls of the 
past, for these would in the meantime have rolled 
underground to Zion and been brought back to life. 
The Temple would be restored, and sacrifices would 
be offered again. And thereafter the Messiah 
would reign supreme and all would be well with the 
Jews and the world forever and aye! 

There was much more to the dream—innumerable 
minor fancies and extravagant details. Generation 
after generation the fantasy had grown until it had 
become almost incredibly naive and childish. Yet 
never in over two thousand years was it doubted by 
the Jew. Every day in his prayers he had begged 
for its realization, and regularly on his festivals he 
had cried: ‘‘Next year in Jerusalem!” 

And it was that dream more than anything else 
that had made the Jew’s life bearable during twenty 
terrible centuries. ... 


fi 


But great as was the worth of that dream during 
the Night, it seemed to lose it all with the coming 


314 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


of Day. The Reformers of the nineteenth century, 
cultured men with critical minds, could deem it little 
more than a crude and superstitious vagary. They 
spurned it utterly. Yet a little of the old yearn- 
ing for the Messiah still lived on in them—only it 
was for a nobler, a higher, a more spiritual Messiah 
than the one dreamed of by their fathers. These 
Reformers went back to the Scriptures and took 
up the conception of the Messiah that had long 
been neglected—the conception of the Unknown 
Prophet of the Babylonian Exile. The Messiah, 
they therefore held, was not a person, an individual, 
but a spirit. He was the Spirit incarnate in Israel, 
the ‘Suffering Servant of the Lord,’ who had been 
divinely anointed to redeem the whole of mankind. 
Israel had a Mission. It was to be God’s most ar- 
dent champion in the struggle to bring Peace and 
Light into the world! 

So did the leaders of the Reform Movement re- 
interpret the old dream of their fathers. The whole 
ideal of the ‘‘ Anointed One” was reft of its patriotic, 
its nationalistic, import. Instead, it was made 
purely religious and universalistic. 

For the first Reformers contended that the Jews 
were no longer a nation. In their estimation the 
Jews were purely a religious group, like the Protest- 
ants or the Catholics. The more pompous among 
them liked to call themselves ‘‘Germans (or Ameri- 
cans, or Englishmen) of the Mosaic Persuasion.” 
‘They no longer considered the Holy Land as their 
home, but whatever land they happened to dwell in. 
Zion was everywhere, they claimed. Every syna- 
gogue in every land was a rebuilt Temple—the 


THE WALL OF LAW CRUMBLES © 315 


Reformers always called them ‘‘temples” for that 
reason—and the languages of all peoples were 
equally worthy to be used in prayer. The God they 
worshiped was no tribal horde, no limited little 
Yahveh whose jurisdiction was confined to the 
ancient Land of Israel. He was the Lord of the 
Universe! 

It was all very advanced and exalted thinking that 
the Reformers indulged in during those years. But 
as some of them soon discovered, in certain ways it 
was perhaps too advanced and exalted... . 


CHAPTER XXXIX 


THE MISSION OF REFORM JUDAISM—AND THE 
STORY OF THOSE WHO PRACTICED IT 


Reform Judaism—or Liberal Judaism as it is 
coming to be called to-day—is so new a movement 
that as yet it can hardly be judged fairly. People 
are still arguing its pros and cons with such heat 
that we all are forced to look on the movement 
out of somewhat prejudiced eyes. 

The accusation most commonly brought against 
it was that it tended to lead the Jews away from 
Judaism toward Christianity. And the first half 
of that accusation was unquestionably true—that is, 
if by Judaism is meant the religion that grew up 
among the Jews during the ghastly Night. The 
Reform Movement was an almost ruthless attempt 
to cut away from all that—to get back to the Juda- 
ism of the Prophets and begin growing and building 
all over again. In certain respects it may have 
failed in its attempt. But at least the attempt was 
honestly made. 

The second half of the accusation, however, seems 
to be quite false. The Reform Movement had its 
origin in an effort not to lead the Jew to the Church, 
but rather to keep him from it. If the Church, 
either Protestant or Catholic, had seemed to the 
Reformers at all superior to the Synagogue, their 
movement might never have come to the birth. 


THE TRUE MESSIAHS 317 


They were strikingly clear-minded and _ courage- 
ous men, and it is unlikely that they would have 
balked even at outright apostasy if they had thought 
it would bring them nearer the Truth. But they 
saw only too well that the Christianity of the day 
was not one whit freer of superstition, bigotry, 
fear, and spite, than the medieval Judaism they were 
fleeing. To go from the Orthodox Synagogue to 
the Orthodox Church meant to them going not 
forward but sideways—no, backward. For though 
contemporary Judaism spent all its time regulating 
one’s action, contemporary Christianity was worse, 
for it devoted itself rather to shackling one’s thought. 

What the Reformers were really seeking was not 
merely some other creed than Orthodox Judaism, 
but some better one. They wanted a belief that did 
not bind them either with petty rules or stupid 
dogmas, but one that set them utterly free. They 
sought a religion that rested not on the authority 
of a book or a priest, but on the great human hunger 
for Truth and Righteousness. And after they had 
fashioned that creed as best they could, all danger 
was past of their ever being lured to adopt Chris- 
tianity. 


2 


Significantly, but few of the Reformers or their 
children ever went over to the Church. Some of 
them, to be sure, have since gone over to Unitarian- 
ism; but that doctrine can hardly be classed in with 
the religion of the Church. (Indeed, it is almost as 
far from the Church as is the Synagogue.) And 
in very recent years, some have gone over to Chris- 


318 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


tian Science—but that doctrine too is many worlds 
removed from the religion of the Church. 

No, the vast majority of the Jews who were 
baptized came from the ranks of those who had 
never entered the Reform Movement. They went 
over from Orthodox Judaism, which because of its 
very orthodoxy, its ‘“‘fundamentalism,” is far closer 
to Orthodox Christianity than the religion of Reform 
Judaism. For instance, it was the colonies of Se- 
phardic Jews in Holland, England, and America, 
which were most reduced by apostasy. And the 
Sephardic Jews with but rare exceptions were most 
rigidly orthodox in their Judaism. 


3 


Liberal Judaism has grave faults, and perhaps 
they will be shown up pointedly enough a little later 
in this story. But it also has its virtues. For in- 
stance, there is its unfaltering opposition to any 
return to what is usually called ‘‘authority.”’ Like 
Orthodox Judaism, it has no pope, living or dead, in 
control of its freedom. Its rabbis hold office not 
because of any official ‘‘ordination,” but by virtue 
of their reputation for learning and religious zeal. 
And unlike Orthodox Judaism, it has not even a 
‘‘printed pope,” for it accepts neither the Shulchan 
Aruch nor the Talmud as binding. 

Even the Bible is not allowed to play tyrant over 
its thinking. Liberal Jews cherish the Bible for the 
nobility of its prophetic protests, the beauty of its 
psalms, the grandeur of its books of wisdom. They 
pore over it because they see in it the epic of their 
early search for God. But they refuse to believe it 


THE TRUE MESSIAHS 319 


utters the last word on that theme, or that the search 
ends with its last page. 

That is a wondrous advance—the more so because 
it was made after four centuries of retrogression. 
Christianity, which began its forward march three 
hundred years earlier, is only now being stirred to 
hazard a similar advance. 

And it was not the only one made by Liberal 
Judaism. Another advance lay in the ideal it 
preached of the Prophetic Mission of Israel. For 
according to this ideal, the essence of religion lay 
not in praying for the health of one’s soul, but in 
striving for the well-being of mankind. The truest 
Jew was seen to be the person who labored most 
earnestly to bring on a Reign of Peace among men. 

That was and is an overwhelmingly high ideal, 
and Reform Judaism deserves abundant praise for 
lifting it out of the writings of the Prophets and 
preaching it anew. Unfortunately, however, Reform 
Judaism seemed able to do exceedingly little to put 
that preaching into practice. In every ‘‘temple”’ 
in Germany and America there was fulsome talk of 
Israel’s Mission—but little effort actually to carry 
it out. 

Perhaps that is the severest criticism one can make 
of the new movement: it knew exactly what the 
Jew ought to do, but failed to induce him to do it. 


4 


There were indeed Jews who were carrying out the 
historic mission of Israel, who were serving as true 
messiahs among men, but exceedingly few of them 
seem to have been inspired by the Reform Move- 


320 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


ment. The exceptions were commonest perhaps in 
Hungary, where certain Reform rabbis like Ignatz 
Einhorn and Adolph Huebsch made their ‘‘ temples” 
notable centers of the revolution of 1848. But save 
for such exceptions, the Jews who led or participated 
in the heroic efforts to remold the world of the last 
century, were neither Reform or Orthodox. Indeed, . 
they were often not professing Jews at all. 

For instance, there was Heinrich Heine and Lud- 
wig Bérne, both unfaltering champions of freedom. 
And even more conspicuously, there was Karl Marx, 
one of the great prophetic geniuses of modern times. 

Jewish histories rarely mention the name of this 
man, Karl Marx, though in his life and spirit he was 
far truer to the mission of Israel than most of those 
who were forever talking of it. He was born in 
Germany in 1818, and belonged to an old rabbinic 
family. He was not himself reared a Jew, however, 
but while still a child was baptized a Christian by 
his father. Yet the rebel soul of the Jew flamed 
in him throughout his days, for he was always a 
‘“‘troubler’’ in Europe. He was banished from one 
land after another, and he was arrested and im- 
prisoned many times. He had to flee from Germany 
to France, then to Belgium, then back to Germany, 
again to France, and finally to England. 

He was so persecuted simply for not holding his 
peace. Very like the ancient Prophets in that re- 
spect, he could not abide the sight of injustice and 
corruption. He was forever protesting in behalf of 
the ‘‘underdog.’”’ He was one of the founders of 
Socialism, and his book entitled ‘‘Capital,” is 
called the Bible of the Socialist movement. He 


THE TRUE MESSIAHS 321 


believed in equality, in democracy, not alone in 
the domain of politics but also in the domain of 
industry. He sought to win for every man the 
right not merely to vote as a citizen, but also to 
thrive as a human being. He warred to banish 
poverty, and all the vice and disease and ugliness 
that poverty breeds. 

There may be some question whether Karl Marx 
waged that war in the most desirable or the most 
effective way. But none can question that the war 
itself was worth waging. It was an earnest effort 
to remold the society of men into a true brother- 
hood, and though there may still be those who 
insist it was misguided, none can deny it was holy. 


5 


Significantly enough, however, those who most 
fervidly talked of the Mission of the Jew, had little 
love for a Karl Marx who tried to live it. Almost 
as soon as they were emancipated and could mingle 
as equals before the law with other men, the need 
for a newer and better world was forgotten by 
them altogether. All of a sudden the world as it was, 
began to seem quite good enough. 

From reaching up, the Jews now turned to reaching 
out. From fighters they changed to ‘‘climbers.” .. . 
Not all of them—but many. Too many... . 

Reform rabbis still continued to tell the occu- 
pants of the pews that they were chosen for mighty 
works, that they were all messiahs. But those who 
really essayed those mighty works, those who were 
the true messiahs, rarely sat in the pews to listen. 


CHAPTER XL 


THE ANTI-SEMITIC REACTION IN EUROPE, AND 
HOW IT HELPED GIVE RISE TO ZIONISM 


Liberal Judaism was—and still is—a movement 
of a small minority. It attracted only those of the 
broadest ‘‘worldliness” in the lands of the greatest 
enlightenment. In Russia and Roumania where 
lived half the Jews of the world, it made no headway 
whatever. In all of the Orient it was utterly un- 
known. The Wall of Law still towered high in 
those lands, and the Jews behind it still dreamed 
on of a Messiah who would lead them bodily back 
to Zion. To have told them to look on the land 
where they dwelt as their Zion would have appeared 
to them but an unfeeling and blasphemous jest. 

The Reformers in the West knew that full well; 
but they were not in the least dismayed. To them 
it seemed but a question of time before their move- 
ment would take root also in the East. For Day 
seemed to be dawning there too. Emancipation 
was spreading Eastward, and with it, enlightenment 
and courage. 

And in the second half of the nineteenth century 
it did indeed seem as though Day were about to reach 
the East. The most tolerant monarch that Russia 
had ever known, Alexander II, ascended the throne 
in 1855. ... Turkey in 1876 accepted a con- 
stitution which gave all citizens, no matter what 


ZIONISM 323 


their religion, full equality before the law; and in 
the first Turkish parliament elected the following 
year, there were three Jews. ... The Treaty 
of Berlin, signed by the nations of Europe, in 1878, 
included a clause compelling Roumania, Servia, 
and Bulgaria, to cancel all laws discriminating 


against the Jews. . . . It did indeed seem indubi- 
table that light was seeping into the East. 
2 


And then of a sudden came a reverse. The advance 
all at once changed to a retreat, and the growing 
light turned again to darkness. Alexander II was 
murdered, and after his assassination, the Jews 
were the victims of the ghastliest cruelties through- 
out Russia. In Turkey, the new parliament was 
dismissed and the constitution forgotten. By a 
trick, Roumania evaded the clause in the Treaty 
of Berlin compelling her to grant equality before 
the law to the Jews. Instead still heavier burdens 
were piled on them, afflicting them so severely 
that they fled by the thousands. 

Even in the West the clouds gathered to blot out 
the sun. A new movement arose against the Jews, 
an unholy mixture of crude prejudice and false 
science, which called itself Anti-Semitism. Warn- 
ings were spread far and wide that the Jew was 
an enemy and a menace, for once more it was 
discovered that he was ‘‘different.’”’ Not ‘‘differ- 
ent’’ merely in religion, but even more in blood. 
It was clamored that the Jew belonged to an alien 
race. He was not an Aryan, a real European, but 
a Semite, a native of Asia. Because the first lan- 


324 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


guages spoken by Aryan and Semite had been dis- 
tinctly different it was concluded that the bloods 
of Aryan and Semite must likewise be distinctly 
different. 

It was all sheer nonsense. Aryan and Semite were 
indeed different in their psychology, in their think- 
ing, but not at all in blood. Quiet intermarriage 
had constantly been going on between the two 
groups. Every war between the two, every in- 
vasion, deportation, oppression, and trading con- 
nection, had left children of Aryan fathers among 
the Semites, or children of Semitic fathers among 
the Aryans. It was altogether untrue that the two 
races were still scrupulously ‘‘pure”’ and unrelated 
in blood. 

But though untrue, still the charge was repeated. 
And the Anti-Semites went further and declared 
that the two groups were not merely unrelated, 
but racially also unequal. The Aryans were far 
the superior of the two races—so they claimed. 
Indeed, all that was good in civilization had been 
contributed by them, just as all the evil had been 
dragged in by the Semites. And all the great men 
of history, no matter where born and reared, were 
claimed by the Aryans as their own. Even Jesus 
of Nazareth! ... 


3 


And then quite naturally a movement arose to 
stamp out the “‘inferior” race. In Germany a party 
was organized for the express purpose of robbing 
the Jews of all their political and social rights. 
In other lands similar parties sprang up—in Austria, 


ZIONISM 325 


Hungary, and France. Anti-Semitic newspapers 
appeared in which all manner of crimes were laid 
at the door of the newly-emancipated people. In 
France they were accused of being German spies, 
and in Germany of being French spies. And in all 
these lands the Jews were said to be plotting against 
all Aryan civilization, seeking to ruin it so as to 
set up Semitic anarchy in its place. 

Even the stupid old medizval ‘“‘blood accusa- 
tions” were revived again. In the Hungarian town 
of Tisza-Ezlar in 1882, a peasant girl disappeared 
just three days before the Passover. Immediately 
the Jews were accused of murdering her to procure 
blood for the festival, and only with great difficulty 
were they protected from the fanatical mobs. Simi- 
lar accusations were made in other towns and in 
other lands—in Germany, France, Roumania, and 
Bohemia. There were riots and massacres, fiendish 
assaults and heartless expulsions. It seemed almost 
as if the dread Night were returning. 


4 


The reaction culminated in one scandalous affair 
that shook all of Western Europe and that had its 
effect on all the world. There was deep unrest 
among the people in France because a corrupt gov- 
ernment was rapidly dragging the country down to 
ruin. Panically that government looked around for 
a way to save its skin—and pounced on one of the 
Strange People. That was nothing new. Kings and 
governments had often found it convenient in days 
gone by to stave off revolution by turning the wrath 
of the masses against the defenseless Jews. 


326 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


A young Jew named Alfred Dreyfus, an officer 
in the French army, was accused of selling military 
secrets to the Germans. Undoubtedly it was done 
in the hope that his trial and condemnation would 
arouse such a furor of Anti-Semitism that the corrup- 
tion of the government would be entirely forgotten 
in the excitement. 

But Dreyfus did not prove a good scapegoat. 
He showed fight, and he had a wealthy family to 
support him. Dreyfus was condemned and sentenced 
to a living death on Devil’s Island; but immediately 
his people began an agitation for a new trial. Pro- 
tests were made, mass meetings were held, articles 
and pamphlets and books were written in defense of 
the innocent man. France was convulsed to its very 
depths, and all the civilized world became aroused. 
Twelve long years the excitement lasted, and finally, 
after the true criminals committed suicide, and the 
corrupt government had been overthrown, Dreyfus 
was exonerated. 

It was a frightful ordeal, not alone for Alfred 
Dreyfus, but for the whole Jewish people. With 
him they all stood on trial, for he had ceased to be 
a Jew, and had become the Jew. And though in the 
end he and his people were declared innocent, the 
lesson of the ‘‘ Affair’? sank deep into their memories 
and remained there. From then on, the Strange 
People were a far sadder but wiser lot. It had 
put the horrible old Fear of the Goy back into their 
hearts. They suddenly found out that despite all 
the long years they had fought for liberty, they still 
had not gained their end. They were still gypsies. 
They had been telling themselves that they were 


ZIONISM 327 


at home everywhere, but now they knew again 
that they were at home nowhere at all. 
They were still in Golus, in Exile. ... 


5 


And then arose that most dramatic movement 
called Zionism. The old Messianic ache began to 
throb again, and once more Jews even in the West 
began to long for their ancient homeland. The 
hasty optimism of the Reformers who had called 
every land their Zion was at an end. And with it 
almost the whole Reform Movement in Europe 
came to an end. Only in America, where the lash 
of Anti-Semitism had not yet been laid on the back 
of the Jew, could the “‘temples”’ thrive. In Europe 
their harried kinsmen were content to worship in 
synagogues, and wait for the redemption of the 
Holy Land before talking any more of grander 
sanctuaries. 

Once again the ancient vow of the Wandering 
Jew was to be heard in the world: 


“Tf I forget thee, O Jerusalem, 
May my right hand forget its cunning; 
May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
If I remember thee not, O Zion!” 


Only now that vow was not uttered in a whisper 
as of yore. It was no longer a timorous prayer but 
a fierce cry of defiance, a ringing battle cry. The 
Jew was no longer willing to retreat and cower be- 
hind his ramparts, to pray tremblingly for the Mes- 
siah to come. He himself would be the Messiah! 
He himself would retake the old home-land! ... 


328 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


The Zionist movement started first in Russia 
during the dread days following the murder of 
Alexander IJ. But it was vague and powerless 
there. Its Russian adherents were enthusiastic 
over it, tremendously enthusiastic—but that was 
all. Zionism with them remained a dream, a thing 
to talk about. They utterly lacked the worldly 
ability required even to attempt to realize it. 

But then came Theodore Herzl. 


6 


Herzl was a Western Jew, born in Budapest in 
1860. During his youth as a university student, 
and his young manhood as a journalist and drama- 
tist, he took no interest whatsoever in Jewish life 
or thought. He was a typical member of the genera- 
tion of Jews then growing up in Central and Western 
Europe. Alfred Dreyfus belonged to the same type— 
a Jew solely by virtue of his birth. 

At the time of the first Dreyfus trial, Herzl was 
in Paris, serving as the foreign correspondent for a 
Vienna newspaper. And the sight of a young officer 
being disgraced and betrayed to the mob simply 
because he was a Jew, set a train of thought running 
in the journalist’s mind that was destined to change 
the whole future of the Jewish people. 

Herzl had such poor Jewish training that he 
knew little of the Messianic Hope reaching back to 
the Exile in Babylon, and nothing at all of the 
feeble Zionist agitation that had just started up in 
Russia. All he had discovered was that though 
thoroughly a European in training and conduct, 
he was nevertheless without. a real home in any 


ZIONISM 329 


European land. No matter how hard he might deny 
it, he was still regarded as an alien and an intruder 
wherever he lived. There was therefore but one 
thing for him to do: go to some land where he would 
not be an alien. There presumably he would be let 
alone to live his own life in peace and develop his 
own talents in quiet. There he would be able to give 
his Jewish genius free scope, and be his own self. 

There, in his very own home, he would be free! 

And hardly conscious of what consequences might 
follow, Herzl set down his ideas in a book entitled 
“The Jewish State.” It was not a book of excep- 
tional merit. Zionists in Russia had written on 
the same subject a generation earlier with better 
understanding, greater feeling, and more originality. 
Nevertheless, that book made a world-wide im- 
pression. Almost immediately Herzl’s reputation 
was made and’ his whole career was transformed. 
At the age of thirty-six he suddenly discovered that 
he was no longer a care-free, religionless literary 
man, but the head of a vast and intensely religious 
movement. Here and there little groups of Zionists 
sprang up, for the most part refugees from Russia 
and Roumania, and they madly hailed Herzl as their 
leader. 

Herzl’s life now became one unceasing round of 
labor. His supporters in the beginning were largely 
dreamers, enthusiastic but penniless. The Jews of 
wealth frowned on his movement, for they still 
cherished the idea of working out their salvation 
in the lands of the Exile. So Herzl found his task 
was twofold: he had to win the Jews for a home and 
win a home for the Jews. 


330 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


Eight years he wrestled with those two tasks— 
eight years of incessant writing and speaking, of 
pleading and rebuking, of running to and fro in all 
the lands of Europe and the Orient, of meeting with 
sultans and emperors and popes and ambassadors, 
of unabating, feverish agitation. 

And then he died. After eight years of superhuman 
effort, Theodore Herzl crumbled in the prime of 
life. It had been too much even for him.  Dis- 
sension had broken out among his own followers. 
The Westerners among the Zionists were willing 
to locate the new home anywhere—in Argentine 
or the heart of Africa. The Easterners, with the 
old Messianic dream far mightier in their souls, 
would have the home nowhere save in Palestine. 

And torn between the two Zionist factions, as- 
sailed by the Anti-Zionists, thwarted by the Chris- 
tian Powers, the great leader was destroyed. 

But his Zionism lived on. Other men leaped into 
the breach and carried on until to-day Zionism looms 
in importance above every other movement in all 
the life of the Strange People. 


CHAPTER XLI 
THE GREAT EXODUS FROM EASTERN EUROPE 


The head and the directing intelligence that 
guided the Zionist movement, belonged very largely 
to the West; but its heart from first to last was 
Eastern. That was natural, for full half of the 
whole Jewish people dwelt in those lands in the 
east of Europe. By the end of the nineteenth 
century, almost six million Jews were penned in 
there, groping in the darkness of Night behind the 
outer wall of Christian persecution and the inner 
wall of Talmudic Law. 

The Polish overlords who in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries had so gladly welcomed the Jews, 
-were now no more. All their lands had been taken 
from those overlords late in the eighteenth century by 
three neighboring powers: Prussia, Austria, and Rus- 
sia. And as ill-luck would have it, the portion taken 
by Russia contained the vast majority of the Jews. 

A greater misfortune for the luckless people could 
hardly have occurred. Russia was perhaps the most 
backward nation in Europe. Her czars were the 
most despotic of rulers, and her subjects the most 
barbarous of serfs. When Poland was conquered 
the Jews fell into the paws of the Russian bear, and 
they suffered indescribably. And the more they 
suffered from the ever greater lengths to which their 
oppression was carried, the more they degenerated. 


332 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


They shut themselves off so completely from the 
outside world that they lived almost in utter dark- 
ness. In the provinces of the north they buried them- 
selves still further in Talmudism, and in those of the 
south they plunged even deeper into Chassidism. 


2 


Only during the reign of Alexander II, from 1855 
to 1881, was the oppression lightened a little; and 


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35.—The Partition of Poland 


immediately Jewish genius began to bloom again. 
Russian universities were thronged with Jewish stu- 
dents glad to escape the gloom of the cheder and 
yeshwah. Ambitious merchants closed and left their 
little shops in Polish towns, and moved off to Mos- 
cow and St. Petersburg. Jewish newspapers and pe- 
riodicals appeared in Russian and Modern Hebrew. 
Yiddish newspapers began to flourish. Musicians 
like Anton Rubenstein, and sculptors like Mare An- 
tokolski, made their appearance. 


THE FLIGHT WESTWARD 333 


The very Dawn seemed to be breaking at last in 
dark Russia. 

And then swift reaction followed. Alexander 
II was murdered in 1881, and with his successor 
came back all the terrors of the Night. The rev- 
olutionary unrest that was seething in the masses, 
was turned against the Jews. Bloody riots went on 
everywhere, so that it seemed the whole of Russian 
Jewry would be destroyed. And when the fury of 
the mob was spent, and Cossacks and peasants 
were too exhausted to continue the carnage, the 
czar came forward with new laws against the survi- 
vors. All Jews who had wandered off and settled in 
the larger cities or on farms in the heart of Russia, 
were ordered to return at once to their old homes in 
the crowded towns of Poland and Lithuania. They 
were all driven out, bag and baggage, to what was 
called the ‘‘Pale of Settlement,” and there penned 
in like prisoners. 

Indignant protest was made by enlightened states- 
men throughout the world. Mass meetings were 
held in England and America. The outrage was 
decried in the press of many lands. But the czar and 
his ministers paid no heed. They were determined 
to get rid of the Jews once and for all. They openly 
admitted that they hoped to convert a third of the 
Jews by their persecutions, drive out another third, 
and murder all the rest. 

So persecutions continued. From 1903 to 1906 
indescribable massacres occurred. (Pogroms they 
were called in Russian.) Thousands of Jews were 
slaughtered in the streets of Kishineff, Odessa, and 
other cities in the Pale. 


Mas en, COLHYNIA 


THE FLIGHT WESTWARD 335 


But it was all to little avail. The czar and his 
counsellors found themselves still unable to get rid 
of the Jews. Hundreds of thousands were killed off, 
and millions of others fled—but still more millions 
remained on in the land. And the more they were 
afflicted, the more stubbornly they lived on; the 
more they were hounded, the more they multiplied. 
They refused utterly to change their ways or their 
thoughts; rather they sought to change the ways and 
thoughts of the Russians. Their sons and daughters 
were the most desperate and violent of the nihilists 
and terrorists. Wherever in the land there was talk 
of revolution, young Jews were to be found among 
the leaders. 


3 


The fleeing millions scattered to every corner of 
the globe. They poured out of the foul Pale in 
droves and scurried to every imaginable place of 
refuge. They settled in France, England, South 
America, China, Australia, Canada, South Africa— 
everywhere. But most of all they settled in the 
_ United States. 

Unfortunately the exodus was altogether without 
direction. There was none to tell the fugitives where 
to go. As they were used to town life in the “Old 
Country” they naturally made for the towns in the 
new countries. They settled in swarms in the larger 
cities, in London and, especially, in New York. 

Only at the twelfth hour was an heroic attempt 
made to provide channels for the streams of emi- 
gration. In 1891 a German Jewish banker named 
Baron Moritz de Hirsch, set aside the huge sum of 


336 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


$45,000,000—the largest gift in the history of the 
world—for the sole purpose of directing the emigrants 
away from the cities toward the open countryside. 
He bought vast tracts of land in Argentine and other 
countries, on which to settle the fugitives. His 
aim was to put the Jews back on the soil, to make 
them farmers instead of merchants. 

But despite the money and zeal back of the 
effort, it failed. Somehow the Jews could not feel 
at home outside the cities. Two thousand years of 
town dwelling had estranged them from the soil. 
Theoretically they could see all the advantages of 
rough, healthy, outdoor life—but practically they 
could not take to it. 

Perhaps the root of the failure lay in the fact that 
the whole scheme of Baron de Hirsch was not a thing 
of their own creation. The emigrants weren’t settling 
themselves on the land; they were being settled there. 
It was not their own hunger for the soil that was draw- 
ing them to the agricultural colonies, but the thou- 
sand doles which a kindly millionaire offered them. 

Many, therefore, even of those who took the doles 
and went out to the colonies, soon tired and moved 
in to nearby cities. 


4 


And in the cities new problems arose. They be- 
came most acute, of course, in the United States, for 
about a million Jewish immigrants took refuge there 
between 1881 and 1905 alone. The port cities on 
the Eastern coast—New York, Boston, Philadelphia, 
and Baltimore—developed vast ghettos and dread 
ghetto evils. 


THE FLIGHT WESTWARD 337 


Those ghettos and their evils are still in existence 
to-day, and they will continue to exist probably for 
many years. All the efforts made by benevolent 
German Jewish millionaires have failed to end them. 
And the chances are that they will continue to fail. 
The ghetto masses themselves must work out their 
salvation. 

And they will. They are already doing it. 

There is tremendous vitality in those masses, 
and in some slight measure they have already 
lifted themselves out of the lowest depths. On 
their first arrival in America, they were despised 
and rather scorned by their brethren who had pre- 
ceded them from Germany. Just as previously 
there had been a coolness between Spanish and 
German Jews when first they came together in 
Holland and America, so now a coolness arose be- 
tween German and East-EKuropean Jews. And 
just as that first coolness was dispelled by time, so 
the second is being dispelled. 


5 


Most of the German Jews in America emigrated 
to the United States during and after the Napoleonic 
wars. They came over in rags, for they had been 
robbed of everything in the wars and the subsequent 
reaction in Germany. And these newcomers were 
treated by the Sephardic Jews, already well at 
home in the New World, very much like ‘‘poor 
relations.” 

But not for long. The destitute wanderers from 
Germany, despite their foreign ways and guttural 
accents, soon began to improve their lot. They 


338 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


started out as pack-pedlars, then opened little 
country shops, grew up with the towns, and finally 
became owners of huge department stores and 
factories. And their children, who had no foreign 
ways and spoke without an accent, became people 
of influence in the middle-class life of America. 
So that what few Sephardic Jews had not drifted 
off to Christianity, were now glad to intermarry 
with them. Compared to the wealth which the 
energetic newcomers from Germany had managed to 
amass, the somewhat effete descendants of the Span- 
ish Jews were almost paupers. 

Thus is summed up the whole story of Jewish 
social life in the United States—and in a measure 
also in England—up to 1881. 


6 


And then almost to a detail that story began to 
repeat itself. The Russian Jew, poor, full of foreign 
peculiarities, a stranger speaking a strange jargon, 
became a pack-pedlar in the country or a sweat- 
shop worker in the city slum. The German Jew, 
quite a bit proud of his Americanism and his re- 
finement, looked down on this poverty-stricken 
immigrant with his outlandish ways. This German 
Jew belonged to a ‘‘temple,’”’ and had liberalized his 
religion almost out of all recognizable likeness to the 
rigid Talmudism of the newcomers. And he was 
wealthy. He mixed and mingled in what he con- 
sidered the highest of Gentile society. So he could 
not but be a little ashamed of his Russian relatives. 

Of course, he was benevolent to them. With 
characteristic Jewish generosity, he aided them with 


THE FLIGHT WESTWARD 339 


loans and alms, and built ‘‘settlement houses’’ and 
other charitable institutions for them. Neverthe- 
less his attitude toward them was snobbish. He 
considered them hopelessly ‘‘foreign’’ and low, and 
therefore his inferiors. 

But gradually the more ambitious or more for- 
tunate of the Russian Jews began to lose their 
‘‘foreignness,” and showed themselves anything but 
inferior. From pack-pedlars they became _store- 
keepers, and from sweat-shop hands they turned 
into ‘‘bosses.”” They began to attain wealth, and to 
move from their ghetto tenements to fine homes in 
the suburbs where the German Jews lived. They 
either became Reform Jews and joined the ‘‘ temples,” 
or else they refined their synagogue ritual and called 
themselves Conservative or Modern-Orthodox Jews. 

In Chicago and New York, hundreds of thousands 
of them who did not attain wealth but were com- 
pelled to remain in the working class, organized 
themselves into powerful trade-unions. 

There was no holding them back. All the energy 
pent up in them during their long Night in the 
Pale of Settlement, broke loose and simply swept 
every obstacle out of their way. Their keen intelli- 
gences, whetted from long study in the Talmud, 
simply gashed a path for them. 

And the dominance in American Jewish life which 
once passed from the Spanish Jew to the German 
Jew, now began to pass from the German Jew to 
the Russian Jew. 

That second process is going on to-day—and going 
on most rapidly. Another generation or two, and 
the transfer will be complete. 


340 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


And then it will be the turn of the Russian Jew 
to show his mettle. Like his brother in Germany 
or Spain, he was well able to live through all the 
terrors of the Night. 

But what is going to happen to him now that his 
Night has passed? ... 


CHAPTER XLII 
THE NIGHT OF WAR, AND THE NEW DAWN 


The Exodus from Eastern Europe which began 
in 1881, continued without interruption until 1914. 
And then there came an ominous halt. 

The World War had begun. Of a sudden all the 
nations of Europe found themselves leaping at each 
other’s throats—though just why, no one of them 
really knew. They acted rather like those pathetic 
maniacs who are so genial and sane and industrious 
for months on end, and then suddenly, bewilderingly, 
without all trace of reason, run amuck. 

The savage in the heart of man broke loose and 
slashed all the bonds of civilization. 

In a way the War can be understood as another 
convulsive effort of the Night to get the world back 
into its clutches—an effort that succeeded only too 
' well for a while. Epidemics of savage intolerance 
of all that was “‘different”’ became common every- 
where. And as might be expected, it was Jews, 
the universally ‘‘different’”’ people, who were its 
sorriest victims. 

The severest sufferings were inflicted on them of 
course in Eastern Europe, and almost half the Jews 
of the world still lived in that region. There they 
lay helplessly in the path of vast armies rushing to 
blow each other to fragments. Just as in ancient 
times the Jews occupied the bridge between the em- 


342 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


pires of the Orient, so now they dwelt on the main 
highways between Germany, Austria, Russia, and 
Roumania. And the armed hosts of the powers 
came thundering over those highways, attacking and 
counter-attacking, rolling each other backward and 
forward, murdering and pillaging and burning their 
way, and leaving East-European Jewry prostrate 
and broken. 

The ordeal of the Belgians was as nothing com- 
pared with what was thus suffered by the Jews on 
the Eastern front. For the Jews were not ordinary 
noncombatants going through the ordinary hell of 
war. They were Jews, and as such were marked out 
for an especially fiendish torment. They were the 
prey of both sides, so that no matter which won, 
they invariably lost. 


2 


It is not easy to tell of the atrocities committed 
against the Jews during all four years of the World 
War on the Eastern front, and all five years of civil 
war that followed in Russia. The story is too ghastly! 
There were wholesale deportations of women and old 
men and children. ... Cattle trucks were filled 
with the sick and helpless, and were abandoned 
on railroad sidings in the forests. ... Carts and 
sleighs were loaded with starving women and chil- 
dren, and sent off into oblivion in the dead of 
night... . Everywhere there was terror and flame 
and ne. ae 

Of all the lur ec chapters in the long story of the 
martyrdom of the Jews, the one enacted there and 
then in Eastern Europe was the worst. It began in 


NIGHT AND THE NEW DAWN 348 


August of 1914, when Russia battered her way 
into Galicia; and it went on without a moment’s 
pause until 1923. The Revolution and downfall 
of the ezar brought no relief, for civil war then 
broke out. Anti-revolutionary generals Jet their 
Cossack armies cut down the Jew without mercy, 
on the assumption that the hated folk were all 
friends of the Revolution. And roving bandits 
calling themselves Bolsheviki, plundered and mur- 
dered these same Jews on the ground that they were 
all against the Revolution. 

There in southwestern Russia a whole people was 
beaten almost to death. Hundreds of thousands 
of Jews were murdered or starved, and hundreds 
of thousands more went wandering through the land 
vainly seeking a hiding place. 


3 


But even after the War the sufferings of the Jews 
were not confined to Russia. Poland had been made 
a nation once more, and drunk with its new glory, 
it celebrated its triumph with wholesale massacres 
of the homeless folk. Roumania and Hungary, even 
Germany, were the scenes of Anti-Semitic riots and 
murders. 

And in lands further west, although Anti-Semitic 
passion could not culminate in lynchings and massa- 
cres, it nevertheless brought sore evil to the Jews. 
A flood of malicious propaganda swept through 
France, England, and America. Fresh currency 
was given to old slanderous stories which recounted 
how the Jews were all secretly united under the 
leadership of certain mythical Elders of Zion and 


344 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


were plotting to conquer all the world. Anti-Semitic 
parties and fraternities were organized in many 
lands, even in America; and Anti-Semitic books 
and newspapers were published and widely dis- 
tributed. 

All the forces of reaction everywhere let loose 
after the War, turned with the old venom upon the 
Jew. Wherever custom made it possible he was 
stoned and murdered, and elsewhere he was re- 
viled and despised. 


t 


And out of the bitterness of his experiences during 
and after the War, one dread lesson was brought 
home again to the Jew: he was still in Golus, in Exile. 

Even in America that lesson was well learnt 
at last. It came first through the sight of the holo- 
caust of his brethren in Eastern Europe. Ever since 
1881 the Jews in America had been answering the 
call for aid from their brethren in the Pale. And 
year after year they had been solacing themselves 
with the hope that the horrors there would soon, 
very soon, abate. 

But the horrors only increased. In 1914 they 
forced the first of a series of enormous relief drives 
to be launched in America to rescue East-European 
Jewry. Incredibly large sums, millions upon millions 
of dollars, had to be sent over to feed and clothe 
the victims of war and prejudice: Year after year 
the Jews in America, poor as well as rich, were thus 
forced to tax themselves to relieve their afflicted 
brethren. In 1922, in one supreme effort, as much 
as seventeen millions of dollars was subscribed! 


NIGHT AND THE NEW DAWN 345 


But while all those funds were being gathered and 
distributed, a doubt began to creep into the minds 
of the American Jews as to the worth of their efforts. 
Slowly it began to dawn on them that the fortunes 
they were sending across were going merely for re- 
lief, and were doing nothing at all to effect a cure. 
Even more: they began to come to the conclusion 
that a cure could never be wrought if their people 
were left to live in Eastern Europe. 


5 


For a whole century they had been deluding them- 
selves that the full solution of the Jewish world 
problem lay in obtaining complete recognition of 
the Jews as citizens in every land where they dwelt. 
But the World War made it clear that in at least 
one region, Eastern Europe, the Jewish problem 
could never be solved by the removal of their civil 
disabilities. Because of their vast and huddled 
numbers, their alien religion, their hateful position 
as middlemen, their age-old unpopularity, the Jews 
could never possibly feel at home there. They would 
have to migrate. Inevitably they would have to 
flee. 

But whither? The more attractive lands in the 
west were no longer willing to receive them. Like 
America, they had closed their doors. And to send 
the fugitives to Mexico or to one of the South Ameri- 
can republics, was but to drag out the misery. For 
those lands, generous and hospitable to-day, might 
grow bitter and hostile to-morrow. 

No, it was clear that what these people needed 
was not another nachtsyl, another ‘‘night’s lodging,” 


346 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


but a real home. That secure haven was needed most 
obviously for the persecuted in Eastern Europe; 
but no less certainly was there need of it for the 
sensitive, the creative, the artist Jews everywhere 
else. For the latter, though now perhaps physically 
comfortable, were spiritually lost. As they them- 
selves put it, they did not feel ‘‘at home”’ anywhere 
in the Diaspora. They could not express fully and 
joyously the Jewish genius astir in their souls. 

Moreover, ordinary Jews, the merchants and 
the professional men everywhere in the world, also 
needed a home; not a home for their bodies but 
for their cowed and Exile-broken spirits. They 
needed a spiritual world center, a dynamo radiating 
courage and strength to them wherever they hap- 
pened to live. With the wall of the Ghetto almost 
demolished, and the wall of Law fast wearing away, 
they stood in desperate need of some new rampart 
of protection if they desired to survive. They needed 
a spiritual home. 

And where in all the world could they expect to 
find such a home, physical or spiritual, sayve—in 
Palestine? 


6 


By such a process of reasoning were American 
Jews won over at last to make the dream of Theodore 
Herzl their own. Only in the interval it had come 
to be something more than a dream. The incessant 
labors of Herzl’s successors had by this time been 
crowned with victory. On November 2, 1917, the 
British Government officially declared its intention 
of helping to make Palestine—which it was just then 


NIGHT AND THE NEW DAWN 347 


wresting from the Turks—a ‘‘national home for the 
Jewish people.” 

And thus at one stroke was a fantastic dream made 
almost a reality. 

There still remained some Reform Jews in America 
and ‘‘Britishers of the Mosaic Persuasion”’ in Eng- 
land who continued to labor under the old delusion. 
Some of them still believed that Zionism was a step 
backwards, an inglorious retreat into a narrow na- 
tionalism. There are still some who believe that 
LO-USV serene 

But rapidly even they are being won over, for 
they are coming to see that Zionism is not at all 
an effort to corral all the Jews in the world within 
the borders of Palestine. Not even the most fana- 
tical Zionist dreams of doing that. The Jews in 
the Diaspora now number over sixteen millions, 
and they never could be crowded into a land four 
times the size of Palestine. All that Zionism pro- 
poses to do is to secure a home for the Jews who 
now are homeless—and for the Jewish spirit which 
for almost two thousand years has been without a 
haven. 


7 


That home has now been secured. In 1922 the 
League of Nations ratified the British Mandate 
over Palestine, and thereby the Powers of the 
world signified that the declaration first made by 
Great Britain had their indorsement. All that is 
left—but it is a mighty task—is to furnish the home 
so that the wanderers may return there and live. 
And that task is now being done. 


348 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


8 


So to-day, eighteen hundred and fifty-four years 
after their expulsion from Palestine at the hands of 
Rome, the Wandering People are on their way back. 
Not all of them. Only those go back who are most 
conscious of their race, who have been beaten in 
body or harried in spirit until their whole life has 
become a matter of race. For the most part thus 
far they are young people, youths and maidens from 
Kast-European universities, and with their staffs and 
knapsacks they go back on foot. The Chalutzim, 
the ‘‘pioneers,” they are called, and in legions they 
are trooping back to redeem the land of their 
fathers. 

Two distinct urges have been basic in all the story 
of the Jews: the prophetic dream and the priestly 
way of realization. The one has given the people 
a reason for living, and the other has sought to 
provide a way. One thinks of them almost as two 
vast spiritual back-drops on the stage of Jewish his- 
tory—the one a stirring red, the other a sober gray— 
in front of which the whole drama has been enacted. 
No matter to what corner of the world the action has 
shifted, always one or both of those drops have lent 
the basic color. Jt is the clash between prophetic 
hunger for the ideal and priestly resort to the ex- 
pedient that lies at the bottom of every advance and 
every retrogression in the spiritudl life of the Jewish 
people. 

Zionism, of course, belongs quite clearly to the 
gray. It is essentially a priestly movement—not 
a reason for living but a way to keep alive. It is 


NIGHT AND THE NEW DAWN 349 


a means, not an end. And if prophetic spirits to-day 
are leading the chalutzim, the Zionist pioneers, it is 
solely because they realize this. They look on the 
rehabilitation of the homeland but as the pre- 
lude to something far greater. To them it is but 
a clearing of the way for the rehabilitation of 
the old prophetic spirit. They abide the gray 
back-drop now, but only because they dream of 
seeing the red one hung in its place in a little 
while. 

And perhaps they will not be disappointed. 

There were only forty-two thousand chalutzim 
who returned from the Babylonian Exile in 536. 
B. c. Yet from their loins there sprang a people 
that gave a new idea of God to half the world— 
the idea that He is the Father of all Mankind. 

What these thousands of newer chalutzim may 
give, no one can tell. Perhaps a new idea of Man- 
kind. No, not a new idea of Mankind, but an old 
one reémphasized—the idea of the ancient Prophets 
that Mankind is one great Fellowship. 

For the.rebel spirit of the Prophets is mighty in 
the bones of these young pioneers. ‘They are no 
timorous band fleeing in a panic from an evil world, 
but hardened warriors intrenching themselves for 
a new assault on it. They are aflame with the pas- 
sion to redeem not solely Palestine, but through 
Palestine all the world. The Messianic dream is 
still with them. They still believe, even though but 
half-consciously, that the mission of their people is 
to bring on the Kingdom of Heaven. 

So who can tell what may yet come forth from 
the new-old land of Israel? .. . 


300 STRANGER THAN FICTION 


9 


Yet one forecast may indeed safely be made. With 
the going back of these chalutzim, the Jews every- 
where go forward. They go forward in history, 
taking on a new lease of life. A new rampart has 
been thrown up to supply the protection afforded 
by the old one of Law. And behind it Jews are 
making ready to go on with their work, their his- 
toric work of Godly Mischief. 

So that even our day can see no end to the life 
of the Strange People, but again only a new be- 
ginning. Even here one cannot write ‘‘Finis’’ to 
this long story, but only 


To Bre ConrTINUED 


GERMANY ORIENT AMERICA 
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AmstERDAM and Establish- 
ment o 


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Dalile ato CdSe bs 


AMSTERDAM 1636 


BRAZIL 


GHETTO DARKINESS 


MOSES 

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Beginning Devs /on of 
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MANCIPATION 


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German Jews begin to 


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DECLATION 


—— 
LAND OF ISRAEL 
Chart F. The Adventures of the Jews, Part VI 


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GLOSSARY 


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GLOSSARY 


Au uL Kiran: Arabic for ‘‘ People of the Book.’”’ The name 
applied by the Arabs to the Jews because they had written 
the Bible. 

AraAMAIc: The popular dialect used by the Jews after the return 
from the Babylonian Exile. It is a corrupt form of Hebrew. 

ASHKENAZ: The medieval Hebrew for Germany. 

ASHKENAZIM: Jews living in, or belonging by ancestry to Ger- 
many and the rest of Northern Europe. Used in contra- 
distinction to Sephardim, the Jews from Spain and Portugal. 

Baa (pl. Baar): Hebrew for ‘“ Master.” Any of a number 
of local gods worshiped by the Canaanites. 

Bast SHEM: Hebrew for “Master of The (God’s) Name.” 
Term applied to a magic-worker and healer among the 
Jews of Poland and Galicia. The most famous of them was 
Baal Shem Tov, ‘The Kind Master of God’s Name.” 

Bes Ha-MepresH: Hebrew for “house of learning” or rab- 
binical school. 

CaBaLa: Hebrew for “tradition.” A system of magic and 
mystical thought that was popular among the Jews in 
the Middle Ages. It was based on peculiar Bible inter- 
pretations which it was believed had been secretly handed 
down by the ancient rabbis. 

Cuassip (pl. CHassiprm): Hebrew for ‘‘ Pious One.” A follower 
of Chassidism, the religious movement which arose among 
the Polish Jews in the eighteenth century, and which won 
over nearly half of the Jewish masses. 

CHANNUKAH: Hebrew for ‘‘dedication.”” The Jewish Feast of 
Dedication instituted by Judas Maccabeus in 165 B. c., 
to commemorate the rededication of the Temple altar after 
its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria. 


? 


306 GLOSSARY 


CHEDER: Hebrew for ‘‘room.’’ The name applied to an elemen- 
tary. Hebrew school. 

Curist: From the Greek word christos, meaning “anointed.” 
The same word in Hebrew is mashiach, or Messiah. Paul 
called Jesus of Nazareth ‘‘Christ”’ because he thought him 
the Messiah, or ‘‘God’s Anointed.” 

Diaspora: Greek for “dispersion” or “scattering.” The term 
used to describe the world outside of Palestine inhabited 
by the Jews after the Exile. 

DonmeuH: Turkish for “Apostates.” A sect of secret Jews 
descended from the followers of Sabbatai Zevi who went 
over to Mohammedanism with him. Most of them now 
live in Salonica, in Turkey. 

Exoum: Hebrew for ‘‘God”’ (originally ‘gods’’). 

Exouist: Name given to the ancient historical document set 
down in the ninth century B. c. by the chroniclers of the 
Northern Kingdom, and now to be found in fragmentary 
form in the Bible. 

EsseNE: Name of Hebrew or Aramaic origin applied to one of a 
sort of brotherhood or monastic order among the Jews of 
Palestine from the second century B. c. to the second cen- 
tury A. D. 

Gaon (pl. Grontm): Hebrew for ‘Illustrious One.” Head of 
the chief rabbinical academy in Babylonia during the early 
Middle Ages. 

GitrtTeR Yrp: Yiddish for ‘‘Good Jew.” A Tzaddik, or wonder- 
working rabbi, reverenced by the Chassidim. 

Gouus: Hebrew for “Exile.” 

Goy (pl. Goyrm): Hebrew for ‘ Gentile.” 

HaskataH: Hebrew for “Wisdom.” The movement begun in 
the late eighteenth century in Germany, and afterwards 
in Poland and Russia, to liberalize Jewish life and 
thought. 

Hesrew: From the Hebrew zwvri, the original meaning of which 
is not definitely known. Properly the word should not be 
applied except to Israelites and Judeans before the Baby- 


GLOSSARY 307 


lonian Exile. After that event the term “Jew” (from 
Judah) became the accepted one. 

HEuLENISM: From the Greek word Hellas, meaning Greece. The 
word is used to describe the culture and civilization of 
ancient Greece. 

IsRAELITE: From the Hebrew Yisrael, meaning ‘‘Champion of 
God.” A descendant of Israel or Jacob. Specifically, one 
belonging to the Northern Kingdom. 

Karaism: The “Religion of the Bible.”’” A Jewish sect originat- 
ing in the eighth century, which rejected the Talmud and 
tried to base its religion and life altogether on Biblical Law. 

Keposuim: Hebrew for “Holy Ones,” or ‘‘Saints.’”’ The term 
often applied to the Jewish martyrs. 

LapINo: Spanish for “learned” or “cultured,” evidently from 
the word Latin. It is the name for the curious jargon made 
up of mixed Spanish and Hebrew, which is spoken by the 
Sephardic Jews in the Orient. It is sometimes called Spag- 
niolish. 

Litvak: Yiddish for a Lithuanian Jew. Often it is used to 
connote shrewdness and cunning, because the Lithuanian 
Jews were great adepts at Talmudic argument. 

Marano: Spanish for ‘“Accursed.” A Jew professing Chris- 
tianity in order to escape persecution. 

MessiAH: Hebrew for “Anointed.” The expected king and 
deliverer of the Hebrews. 

MisHNna: Hebrew for “Repetition.” The code of civil and 
religious law compiled by Rabbi Judah a little before 200 
A.D. It was called by that name because it repeated, with 
many changes and enormous elaborations, the laws of the 
Pentateuch. 

MisnaGGEpDIM: Hebrew for ‘“Opponents.”” Those who opposed 
the Chassidim, and disbelieved in the “ wonder-working” 
Tzaddikim. 

Moreu Nevucuim: Hebrew for “Guide for the Perplexed.” A 
philosophic study of the creeds of Judaism written by Moses 
Maimonides (often called Rambam) in the twelfth century. 


358 GLOSSARY 


” 


Nervi: Hebrew for “prophets.” Originally it may have meant 
“shouters.”’ 

PHARISEE: From the Hebrew pharash meaning ‘‘to interpret,” 
or according to many scholars, “to separate.’”” The Phar- 
isees destroyed the power of the Jewish priests by “‘inter- 
preting” the Holy Law in new ways. 

Pryyutim: Medieval Hebrew for certain synagogue hymns. 

Pocrom: Russian for ‘‘devastation.’”? An organized massacre, 
usually of the Jews. 

Rassi: Hebrew for “My Teacher.” A Jewish title of respect 
for a teacher of the Law. Later it came to mean the spirit- 
ual leader in a synagogue. : 

Rasui: Name coined of the initial letters of Rabbi Shelomoh 
(bar) Jtzchak, the famous commentator on the Bible and 
Talmud who lived in France 1040-1105. 

ResH GatuTHa: Aramaic for “ Prince of the Exile.”” The leader 
of the Jews living in Babylonia. The office was hereditary 
in a family that claimed descent from King David, and 
was abolished by the Mohammedans in the eleventh cen- 
tury. 

SappucegEs: From Tzaddok, who was Solomon’s high priest. 
The Sadducees formed the priestly and aristocratic party in 
Judea from the second century B. c. almost to the end of the 
first century A. D. 

SANHEDRIN: Greek for ‘‘assembly.” The parliament and su- 
preme court of the Jews during many centuries. 

Srrorim: Hebrew for “books,” but sometimes used with special 
reference to the Holy Books of the Bible. 

SemitTes: One of the descendants of Shem. A member of the 
race which seems to have originated in the Arabian Desert, 
and which to-day is represented chiefly by the Jews and 
Arabs. 

SEPHARAD: Medieval Hebrew name for Spain. 

SEPHARDIM: Descendants of the Jews who were expelled from 
Spain and Portugal, and who settled in the Orient, Holland, 
and the New World. 


GLOSSARY 359 


SHAMASH: Hebrew for “servant.’’ The word now has come to 
mean a sexton or beadle of a synagogue. 

SHULCHAN ArucH: Hebrew for “Set Table.” Title of the most 
popular compilation of the rabbinic laws regulating the 
practice of Judaism. It was written by Joseph Karo in 
1555. 


Synacoaue: Greek for “a gathering.” A Jewish religious 
organization, or the building in which such an organization 
worships. 


Tautmup: Aramaic for “learning.” The collection of Jewish 
civil and religious laws drawn up by the rabbis in Baby- 
lonia in the fifth century. (There was also a Talmud drawn 
up in Palestine a century earlier, but it never attained great 
importance.) 

Tarcum: Aramaic for “interpretation.” A translation or 
paraphrase of the Old Testament in the Aramaic dialect 
popular in Judea after the Babylonian Exile. 

ToraH: Hebrew for “law.” The name given to the “ Five Books 
of Moses” which contained the Biblical Law. 

Tosarists: Writers of Tosaros, which is the Hebrew for “addi- 
tions.” The Tosafists flourished in France in the twelfth 
century, and wrote little critical and explanatory notes on 
the margin of the Talmud. 

Tzappik (pl. Tzappikim): Hebrew for ‘Righteous One.” A 
rabbi claiming the power to work miracles. 

YAHVEH: Original name of the God worshiped by the Hebrews. 
Through the mistake of an ignorant translator, the word is 
now usually spelled Jehovah. 

YesHIVAH: Hebrew for “session.’’ A rabbinical college. 

YippisH: From the German jiidisch, meaning “Jewish.’”’ The 
vernacular of East-European Jews. It is the Middle High 
German language of the sixteenth century, mixed with 
Slavic and Hebrew. 

Zouar: Hebrew for “Splendor.” Title of a Cabalistic work 
introduced into Spain in the thirteenth century by Moses 
de Leon, 


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SIX CHARTS TELLING 
THE ADVENTURES OF THE JEWS 


hm 


THE DESERT 


Wild Hebrew Shepherds 


“FERTILE CRESCENT” 


Exodus 


THE WILDERNESS 


Where they wander many years 


Invasion of 4 


WCAN ee AN, trv qqie 


with the “native tribes 


Hebrews feght a5 separate Iribes 
SAMSON, etc.) , 


They unite at last undera King 


They allain um pertal power 


They beyin to lose their power 
Division of the Hing dom a 


JUDAH ISRAEL 
Chart A. The Adventures of the Jews, Part I 


Jahkyist” Mistory. (Judah) 
—--Llohist” story (\sract) 


JUDAH ez) 


oan RS Sov Nereis 
MIC AH 


§ Temporary reform 
§ Reaction 
8 Re form: again 


Deulerenom copied 621 BC. 
JEREMIAA Tray Solas 


Jrida deported. to 


BABYLONIA 


P97 ~ F682 BC. 


e return from exile 53538 BC. 
laqgadh and ZeEcHARIAH Preach 
7emple rebuzl~ 


(Ward Jim es) 


NEHEMIAH Govenor, 444BC. 
Walls of Jerusalem rebut 
Inaitiuiion of lhe Priestly Law 


Five Books of *Moses” completed 


(Reign of fhe Priesis ) 
ALISCANDID: introduces Greek 


enllure 


(Hellenesm takes root ) 


(The Pious Ones” war 
against (ellentsm) 


Chart B. The Adventures of the Jews, Part II 


Hellenism Grows 
os 


ANTIOcHUS tries to end JuDaisn 
ia MACCABEAN REVOLT 
Judea 1s ree 


JOHN Nraeanus forcibly converls Lvonitrs 


Pharisees vs. Sadducees 
es ROMANS CAPTURE JERUSALEM 


Wild Hunger fer the Nessiah® 


VOOR VAS Oe NAZARETH 
DAUL - Beqining of GHRISTIANITY 


DESTRUCTION OF wee Te 


Scape ipa 
ets 


isz-t95 Ban Kocnpa rebellion 


PaBBINICAL Academies moved to <O 


GALILEE 
Wshna Compe led 
RABBINICAL Academies moved to 


DABYLONIA 
The Wall of Law 2a Deel? 


ee hal 
ER SIANS 


-- JEWS” persecuted 
by CHRISTIANS 


_JSalestiniar Lalmud com piled 
Chart C. The Adventures of the Jews, Part III 


BABYLONIA 


Jews ruled by 


‘Prince of Lxile” 


Lebylonian 
lélrud compiled 


EUROPE 
JEWs 


pereceses ARABIA 


CHRISTIANS 


624 Moxnammrp turns against 
e Jrws 


---]| MOHAMMEDAN CONQVESTSI- - - 


Vews grow (hn power 


KHAZARS iw 


southern Dwasida converted ANAN BEN 


to UDAISM 


Revolt against DAVID 
the Talmud.-- 


KARAITES 


Grow in power... 


Kn Kingdom SAADYA 
cee WDawn of ..-4 @o.~ 942) 
Vikelli GC7Ce” 


Chart D. The Adventures of the Jews, Part IV 


EUR OPE 


GERMANY 
FRANCE 


BABYLONIA 


Tirol (Crusade 
Terrible 
Dersecuti 


cond Crusade 


Persecutions 


Massacres 


“« 
yY THE 
7290 -Jews 
Zxpelled 
fron L: nolan 


Terrible MASS~ 
acres at time 
of Brac Deatn 


Expulsions 


Massacres 


SDAIN | Persecution 
Jews mo 


C.OLDEN IBN GABIR.OL 


1021-10 7° 


(Growth of Arabic - 
Jewish ICienle ih pain 


1040 ~ OF 


TOSAFISTS 
C/nterest only 


JUDAH HALEY] 
£7 Jaimud) i : 


083 = 1140 


ABRAHAM IBN EZRA 


1092, = 1167 


MAIMONIDES 


U3J ~~ 1204 


Southern 


France Cenier 
of learning 
Crusade vs. 
Albigenses 
ends Civi- 
érzalion in 


“Monen Nevucnim® Dublished. 
NOs 


1205 Jeur Badge” L aw 
Massed 


E NIGHT” 


Rise ff |Cabalea) 


Nrvucnim?® 
burn 


Constant 


Lxpulsions . 
P Persecution. 


and maasacr 


All Jews 
cx petled 


Vincente lerrer converts 
ews wholesale 


Rise of Merrranoo 


1480 /p fursrtron Loltahlished 
1492 TXPULSION FROM 


REUCHLIN © 


LUM RED: 
Protestant 


2.cformasion 
HOLLAND 


Chart E. The Adventures of the Jews, Part V 


GERMANY ORIENT AMERIGA 
HOLLAND 


POLAN 


MAR TLANOS Massacres, 
setile a Ex pulsions, 
Amsrexrpam and Establish- 


ment of 


Ghettos 


Uritr Acosta 


—— 


GeTmdn Jews 
sellle at 
AMSTERDAM 1636 


~4& Return to 


SABBATAI N 
ZEYV]I 19te~1676 


'T7? Tpegmnng Devision of 
Pot AND 
Emanc 


Eman ~ tim RUSSIA 


SHEPRARDIC JEWS 


CIDATION 
1798 
LR AOF | 
MANCIPATION 
rhe ty Fetelle (ts tare Jews betin to flee fo USA 
or eman: A \° 
ctpation MALES, = 
> 

uk England heat oe Tolerance | Tolerance z 

Revolutions Reaction] Reaction = 

of 1830 4 1648 meno a 

KARL MARX o 


AINT~ SEM TAST 


| 
LHwODOMEH me ale my 
ZIONISM 
Ege VLE 


Ale ATION Set Pee 


| LAND OF ISRAEL 
Chart F. The Adventures of the Jews, Part VI 


ia Dia kao! oie oe 


ON a 
Cia Riek i 


INDEX 


Aaron, family of, 119 

Abraham, 27, 190 

Abraham Ibn Ezra—see Ibn 
Ezra 

Absalom, 54 

Acosta, Uriel, 274ff. 

félia Capitolina, 160 

Ahab, 72 

Ahijah, 74 

Ahl ul Kitab, 189 

Akiba, 159 

Albigenses, 222, 224 

Alexander the Great, 121, 161 

Alexander II of Russia, 322, 
323, 328, 332, 333 

Alexandria, 161, 214 

Alfasi, 255 

Al Khazari, 208, 237 

Allah, 194 

Amaziah, 64 

America, 270, 274, 295, 311, 
344 

Am ha-raetz, 166 

Ammonites, 43, 52 

Amorites, 26 

Amos, 77ff., 86 

Amsterdam, 269ff. 

Anan ben David, 199ff. 

Anatoli, Jacob, 182, 252 

Anointed One (see Messiah) 

Antiochus Epiphanes, 123ff., 159 

Anti-Semitism, 322f7., 344 

Antkolski, Mare, 332 


Apocalypses, 133 

Arabia, 188ff. 

Arabian Desert, 22 

Arabs, 193, 204, 247 (see alse 
Mohammedanism) 

Aramaic, 120, 138 

Arameans, 38, 52, 57, 66, 78 

Argentine, 336 

Ark, 32, 40, 42, 50, 58 

Arnold of Citeaux, 224 

Aryan, 323 

Ashdod, 42 

Asher, tribe of, 38 

Asher ben Yechiel, 255 

Ashkenazim 237, 272, 274 

Assyria, 66ff.; 68, 78, 95, 107 

Athaliah, 64 

Austria, 250, 295, 306 

Auto-da-fe, 236 

Avicebron, 153 

Azariah, 254 


Baal Melkart, 74 

Baal Shem, 288 

Baal Shem Tov, 287ff. 

Baalim, 37, 48, 73 

Baasha, 64 

Babylonia, 26, 68ff., 95, 96ff., 
113, 167, 178ff., 349 

Balfour Declaration, 346 

Baltimore, 336 

Bar Kochba, 159 

Bel, 97 


372 


Berlin, 302, treaty of, 323 

Bes ha-Medrash, 282 (see also 
house of learning) 

Beth-El, 78 

Beth Shearim, 167 

Beziers, 224 

Bible, 75ff., 133 

Blood Accusations, 217, 325 

Bohemia, Expulsion from, 250 

Bolsheviki, 3438 

Borne, Ludwig, 305, 320 

Boston, 336 

Brazil, 272 

Bruenn, Expulsion from, 232 

Bulgaria, 323 


Cabala, 221, 258ff., 285, 288ff. 
Canaan, 13ff., 32ff., 35ff. 
Canaanites, 26ff., 35ff., 58 
“Capital,” 320 
Carpathian Mountains, 288 
Catholic Church, 245, 272 
Chanukkah, 126, 176 
Chalutzim, 348, 349, 351 
Chassidim, 291, 332 
Cheder, 281 

Chicago, 96, 339 

China, 67, 188 

Christ (see Jesus) 
Christianity, 145ff., 226 
Christian Science, 317 
Circumcision, 124, 158 
Cologne, 218, 232 
Columbus, 253, 270 
Commentaries, 198 
Constantine, 122 
Cossacks, 281ff. 
Cremieux, Adolphe, 305 
Cresques, Jaffuda, 252 


INDEX 


Cromwell, 270 
Crusades, 217ff., 220 
Cyrus, 101ff., 108, 111 


Dagon, 42 

Darius, 109 

David, 45, 48ff., 56, 74, 98 
Day of Atonement, 190 
Denmark, 270 

Des Moines, 96 
Deutero-Isaiah, 102, 311 
Deuteronomy, 88ff., 101, 106 
Diaspora, 160 

Dietary Laws, 184 

Diogo Pires, 262 
Dispersion, 158ff. 
D’Israeli, Benjamin, 303 
Dominicans, 247 

Dénmeh, 267 

Dreyfus Affair, 326ff. 


Edict of Toleration, 295 

Edomites, 52, 57, 69, 109, 128, 
131 

Egypt, 27ff., 80ff., 66, 68, 92, 113 

Egyptians, 26 


Einhorn, Ignatz, 320 


Elazar, Rabbi, 182 

Elijah, 74 

Elohist, 76, 98 

Emancipation, 295 

England, 270, 274, 302, 306, 311 

Ephraim, 36 

Essenes, 136, 198, 285 

Euphrates river, 26 

Europe, Eastern, 331ff., 
342, 345 

Ezekiel, 100, 101, 106, 112 

Ezra, 112, 133 


341, 


INDEX 


Ferdinand and Isabella, 235 
Fertile Crescent, 24, 32ff., 189 
Fons Vitz, 214 

France, 232, 295, 325ff. 
Frankfort-on-the-Main, 242 
Frank, Jacob, 285, 286 


Galicia, 283, 343 

Galilee, 138, 145, 167, 255, 285 

Gaon, 197, 203 

Gath, 50 

Gedaliah, 92 

Gemara, 182 

Germany, 220, 270, 302, 306,343 

Ghettos, 241, 242, 243, 244, 
260, 295ff., 301, 302, 307, 308 

Gietto, 241 

Gilgal, 44 

Gitter Yid, 292 

Godfrey de Bouillon, 217 

Goethe, 305 

Golus, 160 

Goshen, 28 

Granada, 224 

Grammar, 210 

Greek, invasion, 119, 121ff., 204 

“Guide for the Perplexed,’ 
215, 221, 252 


Hadrian, 158 

Haggai, 106, 107 

Halevi, Judah, 205ff., 237 
Hamburg, 232, 310 

Haskala, 299 

Heaven, 120 

Hebrew, Modern, 299 

Heine, Heinrich, 303, 305, 320 
Hellenism, 122ff., 129 

Herod, 131, 137 


373 


Herz, Henrietta, 304 

Herzl, Theodore, 328ff., 346 

High Priest, 119 

Hillel, 163 

Hiram of Tyre, 59, 60 

Hirsch, Baron Moritz de, 335ff. 

Hittites, 26 

Holland, 269ff., 295 

Holy War, 193 

Horeb, Mt., 32 

Hosea, 81ff., 86 

“House of Learning,” 164, 166, 
282 

Huebsch, Adolph, 320 

Hugo, Victor, 305 

Humanists, 178 

Hungary, 320, 343 


Ibn Ezra, 212, 276, 297 

Immanuel of Rome, 253 

India, 188 

Inferiority Complex, 102 

Innocent III, Pope, 222 

Inquisition, 235, 268, 272 

Isaac, 27 

Isaiah, 82ff., 86, 102 (see also 
Deutero-Isaiah) 

Ishbaal, 48 

Ishmael ben Elisha, 182 

Israel, kingdom of, 49, 68ff., 
76ff., 81ff., 107 

Israel ben Eliezer (see Baal 
Shem Tov) 

Isserles, Moses, 256 


Jabneh, 164, 167 
Jacob, 27 

Jacob ben Asher, 255 
Jacoby, Johann, 305 


374 


Jehoiakim, 91 

Jehovah (see Yahveh) 

Jepthah, 39 

Jeremiah, 87, 90ff., 133, 134 

Jerusalem, 50, 53, 58ff., 89, 
101, 103, 107, 111; 158, 160, 
209, 220 

Jesus of Nazareth, 137, 168, 
166, 190, 287, 289, 324 

Jew Badge, 227, 243 

“Jewish State,’ The, 329 

Jezebel, 74 

Joash, 64 

Jochanan ben Zakkai, 163, 167 

John, 122 

John the Baptist, 137, 1389 

John Hyrcanus, 128 

John, King of England, 230 

Jonah, book of, 116 

Jordan, 34, 137 

Joseph II of Austria, 295 

Josephus, 152 

Josiah, 87 

Judas Maccabeus, 125ff. 

Judges, 39 

Joshua of Nazareth (see Jesus 
of Nazareth) 

Judah, Rabbi, 168 ~ 

Judah Kingdom of, 36, 48, 63, 
77, 95, 102 

Judaism, 95ff. 

Judea, 285 

Jupiter, 158 


Kaaba, 189, 190 

Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, 253 
Kant, Emanuel, 296 

Karaism, 199ff., 201, 204 
Karaites, 210 


INDEX 


Karo, Joseph, 262 

Kedoshim, 220 

Kenites, 30, 36 

Khazars, 237, 285 

Kimchis, 222 

Kingdom of Heaven, 141, 150 
Kishineff, 333 

Koran, 195 


Ladino, 240, 267 

Lassalle, Ferdinand, 305 

Law, Wall of, 162ff., 165ff., 172, 
197, 252, 260, 307ff., 322 

League of Nations, 347 

Lessing, 296 

Levi, priestly tribe of, 119 

Levi ben Gershom, 252 

Levin, Rahel, 305 

Levita, Elijah, 253, 254 

Liberal Judaism (see Reform 
Judaism) 

Lithuania, 281, 288, 292, 333 

Litvaks, 285 

Lost Ten Tribes, 67 

Lord of Hosts, 75 

Luis de Torres, 253 

Luther, Martin, 247, 248, 249, 
250 


Magdenburg, 232 

Maimonides, 153ff., 214, 221, 
252, 276, 278 

Malachi, 110 

Manasseh, 36, 38 

Marranos, 234ff., 268ff., 272 

Mattathias, 126, 128 

Marx, Karl, 305, 320, 321 

Mayence, 218 

Mecea, 189, 190 


INDEX 375 


Menasseh ben Israel, 270 

Mendelssohn, Moses, 296ff., 302 
304, 309ff. 

Merchant of Venice, 234 

Messiah, 100, 102, 107, 108, 
109, 115, 132, 136, 141, 199, 
244, 258ff, 261, 291, 312ff., 
322, 327, 330, 349 

Mexico, 272, 345 

Micah, 83, 86, 106 

Minna, 218 

Mishna, 167ff., 177, 181 

Misnaggedim, 293 

Mission of Israel, 312ff,, 316 

Moabites, 51ff., 69 

Mohammed, 189ff., 249 

Mohammedans, Jews under rule 
of, 195 

Molko, Solomon, 262 

Moloch, 85 

Moreh Nevuchim, 215 

Moriah, Mt., 106 

Moses, 30ff., 88, 98 

Moses ben Maimon (see Mai- 
monides) 

Moses de Leon, 258 


Nadab, 64 

Napoleon, 301, 308 
Nathan, 74 

Nathan, Signora, 305 
Nazarenes, 146 
Nebuchadnezzar, 68, 69, 97, 102 
Nehemiah, 111 

Neviim (see Prophets) 
New Amsterdam, 272 
New Testament, 94 
New World, 272 

New York, 272, 336, 339 


Nineveh, 116 
Noah, 133 
Nuremburg, 232 


Odessa, 333 
Olmuetz, 232 
Omri, 64 

Oral Law, 168 


Pale of Settlement, 333, 339 

Palestine, 346ff. 

Papal States, 250 

Parthians, 174, 176 

Paterson, N. J., 96 

Paul, 147ff., 190 

Pedagogue, 288 

Pfefferkorn, 246, 247 

“People of the Book,” 189 

Persia, 176 

Peru, 272 

Pharisees, 128, 130, 131, 138, 
140, 148, 162, 166, 285, 289 

Pharaoh, 28 

Philadelphia, 336 

Philistines, 40ff., 44, 46, 47, 
48ff., 50, 69, 109 

Philo, 161, 214 

Philosophy, 213 

Pheenicians, 26, 38, 52, 53, 57, 
60, 69, 74 

Pilgrim Fathers, 272 

“Pious,” 110 

Piyyutim, 206 

Pogroms, 333 

Poland, 237, 238, 250, 279ff., 
283ff., 287ff., 321, 333, 343 

Pompey, 131 

Pontius Pilate, 142 

Prague, 220 


376 


Priests, 100, 106, 348 

' “Prince of the Exile,” 174 

Prophets, 45, 60, 72ff., 100, 
348 

Protestant Reformation, 246 

Protestantism, 248, 250 

Provence, 222 


Rabbah, 182 

Rabbis, 158ff., 163ff. 

Ramadhan, 192 

Ramses II, 28ff. 

Rashi, 220, 221, 248 

Rationalism, 215 

Raymond the Good, 224 

Reformation, 247 

Reform Judaism, 309, 316, 322, 
327 

Regensburg, 220 

Renaissance, 247, 299 

Resh Galutha, 174 

Reuben, 38 

Reubeni, David, 262 

Reuchlin, 246, 248 

Revelations, Book of, 263 

Revolutions, 304 

Rhode Island, 272 

Riesser, Gabriel, 305 

Rome, 130ff., 151, 158, 302, 306, 
348 

Robinson, James Harvey, 216 

Roumania, 323, 343 

Rubinstein, Anton, 332 

Russia, 281, 322, 323, 328, 333, 
335 

Ruth, Book of, 115, 165 


Saadya, 203, 216 
Sabbath, 101, 112, 113, 120, 


INDEX 


124, 159, 176, 244, Lights, 
176, Laws, 181 

Sabbatai Zevi, 262ff., 285 

Sadducees, 129, 1380, 131, 140, 
289 

Safed, 255 

Samaria, 67 

Salome, 122 

Samaritans, 107, 109, 111, 119, 
120, 128 

Samson, 39, 40 

Samuel, 45, 72 

Samuel be Yechiel, 218 

Sanhedrin, 164, 167 

Satan, 120 

Saul, 43, 46ff., 48, 72, 147ff. 

Schleiermacher, 305 

Science of Judaism, 309 

Schlegel, 305 

Scriptures, 297 

Scythians, 87 

Season of Mourning, 176 

Second Coming, 263 

Seforim, 133 

Semites, 23ff., 323 

Sephardim, 240, 272, 274, 318, 
337 

Sepphoris, 167 

Servia, 323 

Settlement Houses, 339 

Shakespeare, William, 234 

Shalim, city of, 50 

Shamosh, 288 

Shefarim, 167 

Shulchan Aruch, 255, 256, 257 

Simon, 36, 128 

Sinai, Mt., 32 

Slave Trading, 196 

Socialism, 320 


INDEX 


Solomon, 56, 73, 89, 98, 133 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol, 214 

South America, 345 

Southern Tribes, 48, 49, 63ff., 
107 

Spain, 205ff., 224, 268, 270 

Spinoza, Baruch, 276ff. 

Stuyvesant, Peter, 272 

Sumerians, 26 

Synagogues, 120, 139 

Syria, 26, 125ff. 


Talmud, 177ff., 181, 197, 220, 
241, 254, 255, 256 

Talmudism, 281ff., 332 

Targum, 120 

Temple, 58, 89, 107, 108, 114 

Ten Tribes, of Israel, 95 

Teutonic Lands, 188 

Thammuz, 85 

Thirty Years War, 274 

Tiberius, 167 

Tibbonides, 222 

Tigris river, 26 

Tisza Ezlar, 325 

Titus, 152, 153ff. 

Torah, 162, 168 

Torquemada, 235 

Tosafists, 221 

Trent, 232 

Treves, 220 

Turkey, 220, 240, 322, 323 

Tyre, 60 

Tzaddik, 291 


377 


Ukrainia, 283 

Ulm, 232 
Unitarianism, 317 
United States, 49, 336 
Usha, 167 

Usury, 229, 230 


Vespasian, 152, 153 
Vienna, 232 
Vicenta Ferrer, 234 


Washington, 50 
West Indies, 272 
Wise, Isaac M., 311 
Wittenberg, 232, 248 
World War, 341ff. 
Worms, 218 


Yahveh, 32, 38, 50, 60, 64, 72, 
82, 83, 92, 97 

Yahvism, 95 

Yahvist History, 74, 76, 98 

Yeshivah, 282 

Yiddish, 240, 299 


Zacuto, Abraham, 252 

Zachariah, 106, 107 

Zadok, 119, 129 

Zealots, 132, 140 

Zephaniah, 87 

Zimri, 64 

Zionism, 322ff., 327, 329, 330, 
347, 348, 349 

Zohar, 258 


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